Melody In Red 2: Conspiracy of Crimson
by HosekiDragon
Summary: A year after MIR. Teens are being kidnapped all over the US and Danny ends up being stolen away as well. Waking up in a strange "school" he knows he has to leave but there are no problems here...no ghosts...no worries...nothing that can hurt him...
1. Opening of the Melody

Ooh, ooh, we finally get to the good stuff! Please read, review, and enjoy!

**Opening of the Melody**

I am the only one left. Everyone else has faded. I'm standing all alone on the edge of a hole where there's nothing left but black, ruined, charred remains.

I am what's left. Actually, I might have been the only one there was in the first place. I don't know. I'm not sure I know much at all anymore. It's all empty. Blank, empty, dark, and cold. And it hurts. It really hurts.

I am the only survivor. Ripped apart inside. Falling to pieces. Black. That's the only thing that makes sense now. An endless abyss of black. Pain. Torture. Tearing me to pieces. I try to sew myself together again but I'm too broken.

Little shards all over the ground. Bloody shards. I can see myself in them. What I could have been. Or done. What I could have stopped. If only I'd listened a little harder. If only I'd tried a little harder.

What good are the powers I have if I can't use them to save the people I care about the most? What good am I? Do I deserve these powers now? Now that I've finally failed, do I really deserve to call myself a hero?

My nightmares echo with the screams I never heard. I don't sleep anymore. I don't know if I could even if I wanted to. I sit in the darkness. Alone. Hollow. I don't want to feel these things anymore. But I'm afraid. Afraid to try and make them go away.

I am so lost. Torn into little pieces but still whole. It makes me want to run. But I have no where to run to. Their voices will chase me through eternity. I know they will. That's how it always is.

I continue to stare down into the hole upon whose brink I stand. I don't want to try and comprehend what happened. All I can do is ask myself…

_Who's Danny Fenton? Who's Danny Phantom? Who's the hero? Why does it matter? Shouldn't I have been able to save everyone? Isn't that what a hero's supposed to do? _

And that empty hole in my chest burns and gets bigger and bigger. I know it does. But there's nothing that can stop it now. Except one thing. But I'm not willing to do that. So I keep saying to myself, over and over again…

_**Why am I still here?**_


	2. 1 Like That Could Ever Happen

One of those, "it always happens to someone else" things going to start this out. Yep. Well, guess what, I'm actually writing this before finishing the first Melody in Red. I'm so stupid sometimes. And I don't think there's going to be anymore 'Mirror Phantom', things were starting to get messy.

Anyway, please enjoy 'Melody in Red 2: Conspiracy of Crimson'. Read, review, but most importantly…enjoy!

**One: Like That Could Ever Happen**

"…That's over fifteen teenagers missing in the past month." Said the man on the news, "Vanishing right off the streets without a trace…! There has been a countrywide fear sweeping across the nation about the missing kids and the government…"

"Can't do anything about it." Danny hissed under his breath, glaring at the screen in the living room from the kitchen as he snatched up his school bag and stomped out the door, "Like they ever do anything anyways."

"Daniel Fenton, just where do you think you're going!?" He winced; his mother only ever called him by his full first name when he was in super, big, deep, trouble.

"I'm going to school!" He called over his shoulder, standing on the steps, hand on the door handle, "Is there a problem with that now!? Because it's all right by me if you don't want me to go anymore!"

"You're not going anywhere by yourself!" Maddie Fenton snapped, rounding the corner with her hands on her hips, "You wait right there until Tucker or Sam shows up, you hear me!? I don't want my little boy getting kidnapped…!"

Danny let his anger drop and sighed heavily, stepping back inside the house and standing in the hall to wait for one of his best friends to show up. No point in fighting a losing battle with his mom, it wasn't worth the waste of energy. Though he could have just gone ghost and flown all the way to school. Danny smirked to himself as he pondered the possibility and was just about to go through with it when someone knocked on the door.

"Hey Tucker! Sam!" Danny grinned at the sight of his two best friends in the whole world, standing on the steps of his house, both looking a little sullen, "What's with the long faces? Are your parents hounding you about 'not being by yourself' too?"

"Unfortunately, yes." Sam scowled, "It was all I could do to stop them from putting a tracking device on me this morning…!"

"I'm trying to pretend it isn't happening." Tucker growled, fiddling with his PDA, "I already have enough stuff I'm dealing with, I don't need this too…!"

"I concur, Tuck, my friend!" Danny bounced down the steps, "It always happens to someone else!"

"You know," Sam said as the three of them started down the street, "It's the people who say that who usually get it. Bad."

"Tch," Danny waved her words away as Tucker rolled his eyes, "Yeah, but you forget who has the ghost powers here…!" He jammed a thumb into his chest, "Me! The all powerful Danny Phantom!"

Sam grumbled something as the trio continued to make their way to school. Never say it happens to someone else, always think it could happen to you. Always.

-------

Danny lay sprawled across his bed, snoring softly in his sleep, his slightly open window letting in a cool breeze that caressed his face. His mother was all for nailing the windows shut but Jazz had managed to convince her otherwise. Blocking freedom or something along those lines. Danny didn't care. His room was like a freaking oven without the window open. Especially this close to summer.

Something peered over the window sill but there was no moon and there were clouds obscuring the stars. It was completely black. When the thing saw that Danny was sound asleep, it slipped silently into the room, lay something gently on the floor, and crept over to the boy's bedside. Danny mumbled something in his sleep and rolled over onto his side. The figure froze and dropped into a crouch, it's eyes level with the edge of the bed, watching the sleeping teen, prepared to vanish if Danny showed signs of waking. Nothing.

Straightening, the dark figure took something out of an inner pocket and made a tipping motion into its hand were something square-ish rested. Then, slowly, carefully, it placed the square thing over Danny's mouth and nose. Danny's brow furrowed and he started to wake but whatever the figure had done it was taking effect and the boy fell still. Seconds later, the figure removed the square thing, stowed it away, carefully picked the boy up, and moved back towards the window. It slipped the limp form of Danny Fenton into what appeared to be a sack, gently swung it over its shoulder and slipped out the window again without a sound.

The room was silent. A light breath of cool air tickled across the empty bed sheets that were quickly losing the warmth the body heat had given them. No one in the house was wiser to the fact that fourteen year old Danny Fenton; aka Danny Phantom to a select few; had just been kidnapped.

---------------

Nice start, don't you think? I like it. Wicked. The good guys don't always win, I say, and I am a firm believer in that fact! Yes I am!

Disclaimer time! I don't own Danny Phantom! He belongs to the wonderful Butch Hartman who is a flipping genius!

Please review and tell me what you thought of the first chapter of…'Melody in Red 2: Conspiracy of Crimson'! Dun, dun, DUN!


	3. 2 Wrong Side of the Bed

O-kay! So, now that the fact has been established that teenagers have been vanishing from all over the country and that our hero, Danny Fenton/Phantom, has been kidnapped, what're we going to do? Read on, I guess…!

**Two: The Wrong Side of the Bed**

"Daniel Fenton! I will **not** repeat myself a third time! Get out of bed right now or you'll be late for-Danny?" Maddie had opened the door to her son's bedroom only to find it empty. The bed was still a mess as though someone had been sleeping in it only seconds before and nothing was out of place. She walked over to the empty bed and brushed her fingers across it. Cold. No one had been in this bed for hours. She looked up and saw the open window, realization and panic flooding her as she put two and two together.

"JACK!" She screamed in hysterics, tears burning her eyes as she threw herself down the stairs, "JACK, DANNY'S GONE! DANNY'S GONE!"

-------

It didn't take long for the news to spread across Amity Park the Danny Fenton had gone missing over night. Sam actually went to the length of locking herself in her room and climbing out the window to get away from her parents who looked like they didn't know how to react to the news. She made her way over to Tucker's house and was about to start throwing rocks at his window when someone tapped her on the shoulder. Tucker. They walked towards the park together in silence, taking a spot at their usual bench.

"I hate to say I told him so, it just doesn't seem like the moment." Sam muttered, resting her chin in her hands, "I don't know if I should cry or if I should get mad or what…"

"I cried." Tucker admitted, "For a whole ten minutes before I decided that wasn't getting me anywhere. That's when I snuck out to see you."

"Sam? Tucker?" Both teens turned to see Valerie Grey walking towards them, "Is it okay if I take a seat?"

Tucker gestured depressingly and the girl sat beside him, her hands on her lap, starring at the table top. A part of Sam wanted to glower at her as she usually did but everything seemed sort of pointless at the moment, like without Danny, life was an empty shell.

"I know I haven't been…the nicest person to you guys." Valerie said slowly, like she was choosing her words carefully or she just couldn't get them out right, "But I…I'm really, really sorry…about Danny…!" She choked and furiously covered her face with her hands, shoulder shaking. Tucker put a gentle hand on her arm, tears springing into his own dark eyes.

"Hey losers-I mean-guys!" Sam looked up, astonished, to see Dash and Paulina coming towards them. They sat down on the bench too.

"We heard about Danny," Paulina said, "Like, the whole town's going on about it." She bit her lip in a preppy sort of way, "It's weird without him, like, there all the time."

"I'll say," Dash muttered, tracing circles with his fingertip on the table top, "It's daily for me to beat him up but now he's just…not there…!"

"Everything empty without him." Sam said flatly and the others nodded in agreement, "It's like, without Danny, there's a big huge hole in the universe and everything just falls apart because he's not there…h-holding it t-t-together…!" And she couldn't hold it in any longer, bursting into tears, burying her face in her arms, sobbing uncontrollably, "Why did he have to be such an idiot…!?" She cried, dark make-up smearing across her face and bare arms, "Why!? Darn you, Danny, why!?"

But no one could answer her.

------

Violet eyes flickered upwards in wonder. A flash of red fur. A gleam of a white muzzle.

"_What is going on!? Why can I not get through!? Who is blocking me!?"_

------

Danny yawned, rolled onto his stomach, and pulled the covers over his head, trying to get in a few more seconds of sleep before his mom came barging in to wake him up to go to school. He heard a snicker of unrecognizable laughter and was immediately awake, tense beneath the blankets that he realized where not his own. Something was wrong. He slowly sat up and pushed the covers off of himself, starring around. Something was definitely, definitely wrong.

The room he was in was fairly large, like a nice hotel room, with cream colored walls and a carpet floor, mahogany doors leading into other rooms. The bed he sat in was the closest to the far wall where numerous band posters hung (one even pictured Ember) and to his left was a night stand, another bed on the other side of that, another night stand, another bed, and another night stand.

"Hey, he's up!" Said a slightly accented voice, "Morning, Newbie!"

Danny looked around and saw two boys, both probably about his age, standing at the end of his bed. One boy had long brown hair he had pulled back into a loose ponytail the hung down his back, chocolate eyes, and some incoming sideburns. There were square glasses pushed up his nose and he looked a little serious. He was dressed in a blue T-shirt with white around the sleeves, light blue pants, a belt from which hung a slightly bulging pack, and gloves without the middle and ring fingers.

The boy next to him was eccentric, to say the least. His bright orange hair was spiked haphazardly all over his head and he had slate colored eyes that flickered with intense enthusiasm and emotion. A black scarf hung around his neck over a maroon tank top whose hem cut off just above his midriff, exposing his belly button, a pair of slightly to big patched up blue jeans with orange-yellow flames emblazed at the bottom, and arm bands that started below his shoulders and ended at his knuckles, neon green with red circles. He also had a magenta heart tattooed by his left eye, a gold ring in left eyebrow, and three golden wrings in each ear.

"Yo!" The brown haired boy waved at him, "I'm Alex and this is ZeE," He motioned to the brightly dressed boy beside him, "Welcome to the Edwardian-Leonardo Campus Institution of Misunderstood Adolescents. Or Ed's School."

"Wh-wh-what?" Danny stuttered, "But what about my parents!? What about my friends!? What about-!?"

"Hey, hey, hey!" ZeE was the one with the accented voice; he flopped onto Danny's bed and got inches from the boy's face, "You need to calm down. Don't you know, you're parents sent you here!"

"Huh!?" Danny scrambled away from the strange boy, "Are you kidding!? Why wouldn't they tell me!?"

"Zachary, get off his bed, sweetie, he's probably scared stiff." Said a female voice and Danny turned to see a woman in a long sleeved blue shirt and matching pants in the threshold of a door that seemed to lead into a hallway, "And Alexander, for once, please, take those blasted ear bugs out!"

"It's Alex." Grumbled the brown haired boy but took the tiny head phones out of his ears. Danny hadn't even noticed they were there. ZeE bounced off his bed and hopped, literally, over to stand by Alex again.

"Alright, it's Daniel isn't it?"

"Danny." The Fenton boy replied automatically, "And I want to talk to my parents."

"Well, Daniel, here's your cloths and Zachary and Alexander can help you around," The woman continued like she hadn't heard him, setting a pile of folded cloths at the foot of his bed, "Don't take too long to get dressed or you'll miss breakfast!" And she left.

Danny stared after her, amazed. That woman hadn't heard a single thing he said. He looked at the cloths, they were his regular red and white T-shirt and his usual baggy jeans. Nothing odd there. Maybe, his parents really had sent him here and they'd just forgotten. It was probable.

"Hey, get dressed already…!" ZeE was hopping from foot to foot, "I don't wanna miss breakfast! It's French toast and bananas today!"

Still confused about his situation, Danny changed and followed the other two boys out of the room and into a long stretch of hall with golden walls and red carpeted floor, other mahogany doors leading into other bedrooms (or so he supposed), all of them decorated like a collage students dorm. He glanced over his shoulder at the one they had exited and found it covered with magazine cutouts of bands and singers. Well, these two were obviously musical, he'd give them that much.

"Don't worry about getting lost," Alex said, noticing Danny gazing around, "I wound up in a storage closet once and ZeE here almost fell down an old and broken down elevator shaft." He chuckled and ZeE laughed loudly, "We'll help you out!"

"So, er, what exactly goes on around here…?"

"Nothing much," ZeE replied, "These here are the boy's rooms and the girl's rooms are on the other side of the school." He paused, "Well, I still don't know why we call it a school because we don't really **learn** anything, per say, we basically do whatever we want!"

"With the occasional medical examination or test." Alex put in as they reached the end of the hallway and pushed open a metal door, heading up a flight of stairs, "The rooms are on the bottom level and all these other doors," He gestured to some as they passed them on the landings, "Lead to other parts of the school."

"What's that music? Where's it coming from?" Danny had suddenly realized that there was a song of some sorts playing in the background and the other two quieted down so he could listen. It wasn't really a song because there were no words but someone was singing and it was a haunting sort of melody that made him feel light, relaxed, and he smiled.

"They play that everywhere," Alex said, "Except in the bedrooms. I asked one of the doctors about it once and he said it was just background noise." The boy shrugged, "Beats me, though."

ZeE skipped ahead and pushed open another metal door that lead into a frighteningly noisy cafeteria. Kids **everywhere**. Now, Danny went to high school and there were a lot of kids at Casper High but this place, Ed's School, beat it all the way. At least a thousand kids, boys and girls, all of them appearing to be between the ages fourteen and seventeen, flooded the huge cafeteria. Voices rang out, laughter, shouts, the clatter of glasses and silverware on plates, and only if you strained your ears could you hear the melody in the background.

The room itself had no windows. In fact, Danny had not seen any windows anywhere, not even in the bedrooms. But it didn't bother him that much. A huge mural was painted on the far wall, depicting a beach scene that looked rather welcoming, the other wall was dark brown wood, as was the one with the door they had come through, and the last wall was an extensive buffet that covered the entire wall, some people in the blue outfits watching the kids and the food supply. A couple girls burst out the door behind the three boys, giggling and laughing, and ran up to the waiting line, glancing back over their shoulders at the group.

"Come on, let's go!"

----------

Stupid way to end a chapter but it was getting a little long so I cut it short. Don't worry though, there'll be another one soon!


	4. 3 Playing Doctor

Don't tell.

**Three: Playing Doctor **

"So, seriously, you're not pulling my leg, the most we do here is hang out and play? Do basically whatever we want? All day?" Danny asked, taking advantage of his heightened reflexes (due to his ghost powers) to whip the puck back across the air hockey table at ZeE who leapt at it and missed, "Another point for me…!"

"Yeah," The exuberantly dressed boy laughed, pulled the puck out of his slot, faked a shot, and hit across the table, "I mean, there's **some** stuff that we **have** to do but mainly the people who run this place just leave us alone."

Danny smacked the puck back,

"What's this place for anyway?"

ZeE hit the puck so it ricocheted off the side and clattered into Danny's goal,

"Dunno. Therapy, I guess. Misunderstood Adolescents, right?"

Danny pulled the puck out and twirled it in his fingers, brow furrowed,

"I don't think I'm misunderstood…" He imitated a fast hit and then tapped the puck so that it slithered slowly across the air table and ZeE slipped up and missed hitting it, Danny smacked it and sent it straight into the goal, "Boo-ya! Another point for me!"

ZeE smirked and pulled the puck out, balancing it on the tip of his pinky finger before setting it on the table again. But he didn't hit it; it looked like he was remembering something that was hurting him.

"I was misunderstood." He finally said, his accent thicker now that he'd lowered his voice, "People called me…names that they had no right to, judging me by my appearance and looks alone. I didn't have any friends."

"Uh-oh," Alex was suddenly at ZeE's side, tapping a thick book on the other boy's spiky orange hair, "Looks like you made the ever buoyant Zachary deflate. Come on, man, perk up." He poked ZeE in the side a couple times and the boy squirmed, a grin splitting his features.

"Cut it out, Alex!" He unexpectedly whipped the puck across the table at Danny who, not ready for the move, flung his arm out and nicked it but not enough to make it not go into his goal.

"Darn!" He tossed the paddle down on the table, smiling, "You beat me! Not even my best friends can beat me at Air Hockey!"

"Whoo!" ZeE pumped a fist into the air, doing a crazy of dance of victory, "I beat the all powerful Danny! Go me!"

"All powerful…?" Danny muttered, the words seemed to tug at his mind and then he heard the song playing and it slipped away, "Meh! What's next?"

"A medical examination and trialing, Daniel." Said a male voice and Danny turned to see a man in a blue out fit with a clipboard in one hand, "Please follow me."

"What?" Danny looked at ZeE and Alex but they were already preoccupied with a round of Air Hockey against one another so he shrugged and followed the man. They went out the metal door and onto the stairwell, heading upwards to another door that opened into a sterile white hall that made Danny think of a hospital. The man led the teen down the hall past several white doors with no markings or windows and then opened one of them that was partway down the hall, motioning for the boy to step inside. Danny did so and the door closed behind him.

The inside of the room was as white as the hallway but definitely not as bland. A white chair like something from the dentist's office was set in the middle of the room, blazing white lights shone down from above, and a number of machines and tools were all over the walls. Several peoples in white where standing around, waiting for him; they all wore medical masks over their mouths and noses, black tinted goggles over their eyes, and elastic white gloves over their hands.

"Ah, Daniel, please take a seat in the chair." The man's voice was slightly above monotone, "This is just going to be a couple of tests. No harm."

Danny slid slowly into the chair, glancing around, suddenly realizing how quiet it was here. The music wasn't playing on this floor. It was completely silent. An oppressive silence that made him shiver.

"Alright, you're just going to feel a little bit of a poke." The doctor jabbed a needle into his arm and Danny hissed at the feeling. It was a strange sort of needle; there was a plunger on the end as usual but instead of taking the blood into a vial, it was sent along a tube and into one of the machines. A series of beeps and whirs ensued and the other people in white in the room were all scribbling things down.

"Doctor," Said a woman, looking up from her papers, "He has an extremely high amount of ectoplasm in his bloodstream."

"Have you had any recent contacts with ghosts, Daniel?" The doctor asked and Danny immediately tensed. That was his secret. He couldn't tell anyone, couldn't tell anybody.

"No." He lied and everyone looked at him. He shrank back in his chair.

The doctor shook his head, turned, pulled another instrument off a counter, and clamped it around Danny's wrist. It was cold, and heavy, and it tingled against his skin. Several wires ran from it and into a consol where another person in white sat in front of it.

"Go ahead." Said the doctor (Danny decided right there to call him Doc), "But not **too** strong, we don't want to hurt him."

"Yes, Sir." The man at the consol started tapping into the keyboard and Danny felt an electric shock course through him, not a strong one but enough to make him yelp.

"Hmmm," Doc rubbed his chin, "A little more power. Times Two."

"Times Two? But sir, it was already at level ten."

"Really? Well, turn it up."

"But-."

"I said turn it up."

"Yes sir."

"Hey," Danny tugged at the metal bracelet clamped onto his wrist but he couldn't remove it, "Hey, I thought you said this was an examination! Where do I get my flu shots!?" He shouted in pain as another wave of the electricity jolted his body and he felt a familiar spark leap inside his mind. No! He couldn't go ghost! Not in front of these people! His secret…it would be…!

"Hit him again."

Another shot of pain. He screamed and bit his lip, writhing in the chair. Strong hands held him down.

"Again. Times Two."

Agony. Stronger. Ripping him apart. A flash of cold white light and his baggy jeans and T-shirt were replaced by the black and white jumpsuit with the 'DP' logo on his chest. He heaved a heavy sigh, shaking slightly, his green eyes wide and flickering across the covered faces of every person in the room, his white hair falling into his vision.

"Interesting, we've managed to get ourselves a halfa. And not just any halfa, Danny Phantom. Yulcifer will be pleased."

"Hey! I want to know what's going on!" Danny shifted back to his human form, angry that he'd been forced into ghost mode, "Tell me!"

"Sleep." Someone sprayed something in his face and blackness overtook him…

----------

Sam was spinning around and around in one of her swivel chairs, starring blankly at the floor, music blaring loudly from the speakers of her stereo. She was depressed. Skipping school. She knew Tucker was too.

"_So I've made up my mind. I'll pretend to leave this world behind and in the end you'll know I've lied to get your attention, I'm faking my own suicide."_

Her parents were furious, of course, about her locking herself up in her room, refusing to go to school. They didn't care. Didn't understand. Parents rarely did.

"_I'm faking my own suicide because I know you love me you just haven't realized. I'm faking my own suicide. They'll hold a double funeral because a part of you will die along with me."_

A part of her did die when Danny disappeared. Sam stood up and walked across her room, dropping onto her bed with a sigh, curling up on top of the covers, arms wrapped around her middle like if she didn't she'd split in half.

"_I wish you thought that I was dead. So rather than me, you'd be depressed instead. And before arriving at my grave you'd come to the conclusion that you'd loved me all your days but it's too late, too late for you to say."_

She wanted to say it to him. She'd thought about it plenty of times but had never actually worked up the guts to tell him. And he'd just been too stupid to pay attention to his feelings. She missed him terribly.

"'_Cause I'm faking my own suicide because I know you love me you just haven't realized. I'm faking my own suicide. They'll hold a double funeral because a part of you will die along with me."_

She picked up the phone by her bedside and was halfway through typing in the Fenton's home phone when she changed her mind and hung it up. They probably wanted to be alone. Just like she did. The phone rang and she jumped, snatching it from the hook.

"H-hello?"

"Sam, um, this is Jazz. Is it okay if I, well, if I talk to you? You aren't busy or anything are you?"

"No. No, it's fine."

"_I'll write you a letter that you'll keep reminding you your love for me was more than six feet deep. You'll say aloud you would've been my wife and right about that time is when I'll come back to life and let you know…"_

"Well, I," Jazz paused and her sigh crackled through the phone, "It's about Danny. I just…I just thought I should tell you that I…that I know."

"You know? You know about what?"

"_That all along I was faking my own suicide because I know you loved me, you just never realized. I was faking my own suicide. I'll walk in the room and see your eyes open so wide…"_

"I know Danny's part ghost. I've known for a while now and I…I never actually told him that I knew…!" Her voice choked and Sam felt something wet hit her hand. She was crying, "And now he's…he's gone and got himself k-kidnapped…!"

"_Because you know you will never leave my side until the day that I die for the first time."_

"It's okay Jazz," Sam consoled, her voice quivering, "They'll find him. We'll find him. We'll all get through this together, I swear. Danny's tough. He'll make it through."

"_And we'll laugh, yeah, we'll laugh and we will cry…"_

"Thanks Sam," Jazz had a sad smile in her voice, "I'm going to go now and call Tucker, I figure I should tell him too."

"Alright, see you."

"Yeah, bye." There was a click and a dial tone. Sam set the phone down. The dial tone was what it was like without Danny there. No one was answering.

"_So overjoyed with our love that's so alive. Our love is so alive."_

-----

Sorry about the lame cliffhanger on Danny's end of the story but I couldn't think of another way to get him out of there. So, now the mean people who kidnapped him know his secret; he's the halfa named Danny Phantom. But who is Yulcifer and what exactly do those people want?

Ooooh, lameness strikes back with a terrible vengeance! So, that song Sam's listening to it 'Faking My Own Suicide' by Reliant K. I like them, they have cool songs. It's actually probably not something Sam would actually listen to but maybe the title just caught her attention and she wanted to know what it was. (shrugs)

Well, please leave me a review! Byes!


	5. 4 Unlockables

Nothing can be hidden for too long…

**Four: Unlockables**

Danny groaned and shifted, throwing an arm across his face. Something smacked his forehead and he jolted upright, gasping, and starring at his wrists. Two bands of black metal were clamped there, sparkling with a strange green undertone, they tingled against his skin and he longed to pull them off but something told him he'd get the same results of that thing that they'd hooked him up to in the chair.

"Here!" Someone shoved a neon green iPod into his hands and he blinked up at Alex who pushed his glasses back up his nose, "I've got tons! ZeE took my pink one!" He held up a cerulean iPod, the wire leading to his headphones, waving as he shook it in Danny's face, "Any music you want, ZeE can get it for you!"

"Right!" Danny turned to see the other boy perched on his own bed shirtless, his black scarf still wrapped around his neck and his arm bands still on, a black and pink butterfly tattoo exposed on his back like a pair of tiny fairy wings, "I've got 'free' wireless internet so I can get you anything, anywhere, anytime!" He winked, "I hack for fun."

"What the heck!?" Danny slid out of his bed, finding himself still dressed in his jeans and T-shirt, "What happened!? Those people! What did they do to me!? And what…are…these…things!" He emphasized each word with a tug at one of the bracelets, scowling and muttering under his breath.

"I dunno." Alex muttered, his attention taken by his iPod, "Decorations? Maybe they thought you were boring."

"Hmph," The black-haired boy stomped over to the bathroom and slammed the door, locking it behind him before turning to the mirror and running his fingers through his hair, "Nothing looks different," He glanced down at the bracelets and then back at his reflection, "Goin' ghost…!" He hissed and focused on the cold ghost energy in the back of his mind.

Sparks leapt off the bracelets, digging into his skin and making him scream, and they began glowing bright green. A door slammed open, Alex and ZeE started shouting, and then someone burst into the bathroom and grabbed Danny by his shirt front, holding his inches away from a pair of gray, blank eyes.

"Do not try that again, Daniel." Said a cold voice, "We will know. And we will stop you. Do not try to use your powers, Daniel." And he was dropped, gasping, onto the floor. A door shut and there was a heavy, awkward silence and then a creak of bed springs and someone padding across the carpet. Alex crouched next to him, putting a hand on his shoulder in comforting way.

"Danny, are you okay?" ZeE asked, "What happened?"

"Curse it all…!" The halfa groaned as he pushed himself upright, "Curse them into oblivion, they freaking blocked my powers!"

"Powers? What powers?" Alex asked and Danny froze, realizing what words had just slipped out in his anger and pain, "What are you going on about?"

"I…I…I didn't…I mean…that is I…" Danny stuttered, looking from Alex's confused features to ZeE's curious ones, he was stuck, "I…what I meant was…"

"Are you a video game fanatic?" ZeE asked, fingers still tapping away at his laptop keyboard, his eyes never leaving Danny's face, "Is that what this is?"

"N-no…!" The other boy stammered, "I…" He bit his lip and looked at the floor, "Look, I…got in an accident about a year ago and it gave me powers. Ghost powers. I'm a halfa. Half ghost, half human."

ZeE gapped at him, his hands frozen half-way through whatever it was he was typing into his laptop, and Alex had a strange look on his features, like he knew something about Danny that Danny didn't.

"There…" Danny sighed, "Go ahead and laugh or scream or reject me or whatever-."

"You're a halfa?" Alex asked and Danny's attention was immediately on him, blue eyes flashing a question, "I've heard those doctors talk about halfas and ghosts. I don't know what they want with them but if you're a halfa you must be getting something special."

"Doubt that," Danny growled, "These things are stopping me from 'going ghost'. That's not special treatment if you ask me; that's torture."

"n0t l33t…" ZeE murmured, turning back to his computer, "n0n3 of it…"

"What the!? What did he just say!?" Danny starred at the hacker and then at Alex who was casually flipping through songs on his iPod, "Alex, what did ZeE say!?"

"He said that what they're doing to you and within this place isn't cool." The boy pushed his glasses up his nose and smiled, pushing the neon green iPod into Danny's hands again, "Come on, Danny, get some music. Hearing that tune all day long does things to your head."

Danny shrugged. Might as well enjoy it while he could. Who cared about his ghost powers, they weren't that important anyway unless a ghost attacked. And no ghost was going to attack this place. Who cared if these people knew his secret, who cared if Alex and ZeE knew, they weren't telling. He shoved his way onto ZeE's bed and started rambling off a list of songs and Alex joined him and soon all three of them were laughing at some stupid video they found on You Tube.

Danny was having the time of his life. He didn't even stop to think about what was going on. He was having too much fun.

---------

"You need to eat, Tucker, you can't starve yourself…!"

"I can too."

"No, you can't! You **need** food!"

"No, I don't. I'll starve, thanks."

"But-."

"Leave me alone."

"Tucker-."

"Go away."

"Tu-."

"Get OUT!"

He heard the door slam, the sound of angry footsteps down the hall and stairs, and then some muffled words. He didn't move. Jazz had called him a few minutes earlier to tell him what she had already told Sam. She had known. She had known Danny Fenton was Danny Phantom. But she couldn't tell him. And Tucker couldn't either. Tucker couldn't be there for Danny as his best and long time friend because Danny wasn't there.

His eyes burned and he clenched his fists, burying his face into his pillow, glasses discarded on his bedside stand. The silence pressed in on him like a ton of bricks, weighing him down with every morbid thought and empty, dry sob, telling him over and over and over in its own soundless way that Danny was gone.

Disturbed by the stillness crushing him, Tucker reached out blindly, his face still in his pillow, and hit the button on his radio, not caring about what was playing, just trying to get rid of the silence that was killing him, eating him up.

"_Another gun for hire and just another day. When you are done you just abuse it, whatever you say. If you were offered some, would you wanna bite the hand? Would you betray a friend to prove you're cold and then walk away?"_

And no one was doing anything; Tucker sat up in his bed, rubbing his face, trying to get a hold of himself; no one was looking for Danny. Even he, Tucker Foley, was sitting, pouting more like, in his room like a five year old! How could he!? How could he do that to Danny!?

"_We were born with nothin', I don't want, but you need something. You want glory, I need none and it's coming between us."_

His best friend in the whole world and what was he doing, crying! Unforgivable! Tucker leapt from his bed, snatching up his glasses and strode over to his door, reaching out a hand for the handle…

"_People are born with, people are born without, some people have, and others want what some go without. Some people live free, some people just want more, as for me I got all that I need."_

…And stopped, letting his hand drop. He didn't know where to start. He stood in the middle of his room, looking blankly at the door like it would give him the answers. But there were no answers. Danny had simply vanished.

"_Do you still think that we're not brave if we don't bleed? We've seen so much blood and violence already, how much do you need? You howl and fight your war and talk of being free. Won't let you in, they're just usin' you so why don't you see?"_

Disappeared. Poof. Invisible. Just like the half ghost he was. Only this time, he wasn't going to come back, not on his own at least. And there was hardly that big of a fuss outside of Amity Park; kids were being kidnapped all over the country, no one else was doing anything about it so why bother with one more kid?

"_Some people are born so much closer to the sun, holdin' out their hands and grabbin' golden rays they are the choosen few. But we both know of course that's not you or me and I'd be telling the truth if I said it don't matter, so how 'bout you?"_

But this was **Danny**! Danny Fenton, the son of the greatest ghost hunters in Amity Park, the clumsy, cute, shy, and bully-targeted Danny whose greatest pleasure was to hang out with his pals at the Nasty Burger and chow down on a handful of fries and a shake.

"_Can you tell me really you don't need it, you don't want it? If you can, cool, if you can't, the difference between us…"_

Not to mention he was Danny Phantom. Who was going to protect the town without the ghostly hero there? Would anyone notice that Phantom wasn't there? Would they care or would they be glad to get rid of him? Tucker's fist clenched once more and he gritted his teeth against the tears. He **had** to find Danny! He just had to!

"_People are born with, people are born without, some people have and others want what some go without. Some people live free, some people just want more, as for me I got all that I need. Don't got much but I got what I need."_

He'd go to Sam's house and they'd plan together, find something, **anything**, that might get them a lead to where Danny had been taken. And Jazz, Jazz could help too now. A trio out to set things right again. He allowed a smile to trace his lips but it was sad. They'd do it, it'd be hard, but they'd do it. And they'd find Danny. Tucker had no doubts.

"_Some people are always reachin' for somethings they don't need. I'll tell you now with thoughts like that there will never be enough."_

Because Danny was looking for a way out. Danny was looking for a way to get back to Amity Park, back to his friends, back to his family, back to his life.

"_Some people are always strugglin' for something that is not. I'll tell you something now that I'm really fine just lovin' what I got."_

Danny would remember them and come back to them. Just like always.

-------

Yeah! Tucker scene! I feel I leave the guy out too much so he got his own little musical scene with the song 'could you bite the hand?' from Wolf's Rain. But his thoughts may not be exactly right. By the looks of things on Danny's end, it doesn't seem like he's looking for a way out. But he hasn't forgotten Sam and Tucker, has he?

Thanks for the reviews and thanks for reading! Please, tell me what you thought of this chapter and stay tuned for more! Byes!


	6. 5 Dreaming of a Nightmare

Don't have anything to say? Say it anyway. (skipping ahead a few days, here) Warning: this chapter may contain slightly disturbing images. Thank you.

**Five: Dreaming of a Nightmare**

"You forgot, didn't you?" Alex crossed his arms, ZeE snickering in the background, "We have cleaning duty tonight! I told you that yesterday! Geez, Danny, don't you listen?"

"No." Danny smirked, leaning against the door frame, "Well, sometimes. When did you tell me?"

"Lunch time."

"Then I was definitely **not** listening. List3ning is n0t l33t."

"ZeE, darn it all, have you been teaching him l33t!?"

"M3?" The hacker chuckled, ducking a swing from the brown-haired boy, "N3v3r!" He laughed again and dodged to Danny's side, making a stupid face, "Ph34r m3!"

"Shove it!" Alex grinned and tackled the other two to the floor where they got in a wrestling match, tugging at one another and pushing each other around. Danny had been at Ed's School for almost a week; five days to be precise; and, aside from the occasional chore, he was enjoying it. It was like no school he'd ever attended. There was breakfast in the huge cafeteria, then they went into the huge recreational hall or the giant gym or the swimming pool, then lunch, then they got time to do whatever they wanted in their rooms, then supper, and then bed. Sometimes this schedule of events was interrupted by a medical examination or something of the like but no one thought much of it. And the black bracelets on his wrists didn't bother Danny anymore.

"Stupid bunch of morons…!" Alex sniggered, holding ZeE's scarf in one hand (the boy still attached) and the back of Danny's shirt in the other, "Come on, I don't want to get into trouble…!"

"The Great Hacker ZeE get into trouble!? The very idea!?" ZeE bounced out of Alex's grasp, swinging his arms wildly, "Great Hacker ZeE **never** gets into trouble!"

"Alright, no more Megatokyo for you, buddy!" Alex gave him a shove from behind, egging him onwards.

"Squ33k!" Danny said loudly in his ear and roared with laughter as Alex rounded on him, "It was the 3vil on3! Spar3 m3!" He laughed at Alex's reaction and weaved around him to leap in front of ZeE and the two started racing each other down the hall, their music loving friend shouting in their wake.

--------

Nothing. They had come up with nothing for five days. Danny Fenton had just ceased to exist. And Danny Phantom had gone right along with him. Most of Amity Park had given up and gone on with their lives like the rest of the world. Kids disappeared all the time, what did one more matter? But he mattered to several people.

The 'hunting party' had started out as just Sam, Tucker, and Jazz but soon Valerie had joined in and eventually Jack and Maddie. Of course, the first person the original trio searched was Vlad. But the millionaire was going about his own business in Wisconsin, plainly unaware that his arch rival had been kidnapped. From there, everything went downhill. There were no leads, no clues, not anything. They were searching blind; groping in the darkness for someone who seemed to no longer exist.

But they weren't giving up. They weren't going to stop looking, even if it meant sleepless nights and horrible waking nightmares they'd keep going. That was how much Danny meant to them. They'd sacrifice everything to get him back. And they knew he was doing the same to get back to them.

--------

Danny was exhausted after the cleaning duty. He didn't even want to think. He tossed his cloths in the dirty laundry basket by the main door and slumped under his covers, welcoming sleep. ZeE and Alex continued to giggle softly in the darkness about some private joke but Danny closed his eyes and blocked them out, sighing contentedly as he sank into his own mind. The dream came as quickly and as abruptly as reality.

_He was in a house. A nice house, not grand or anything but homely and a little on the small side. But it felt warm and welcoming like he belonged there. Realization hit him; this was __**his**__ home, __**his**__ living room, __**his**__ life. This was where he lived. But he didn't smile. It was empty. No one was here to see him come home. Perhaps they'd forgotten about him. He tried to recall who it was who should be here to greet him but all he could think of were titles; best friends, mother, father, sister; and no faces came to mind._

_Troubled by the strange hollow feeling he was getting, he walked out of the living room and turned his attention to the stairs. They seemed long, haunted by a presence he couldn't quite put his finger on, stretching inevitably onward and upward forever._

"_Daaaaannnnnnnnnyyyyyy…" It was a soft whisper, like a voice carried by the breeze, trickling from somewhere up that huge staircase, hissing teasingly familiar in his ears, "Daaaaaaannnnnnnnnyyyyyyy…"_

_Tentatively at first and then with greater confidence, he began to climb the stairs. It seemed to go on for hours but time has little meaning in dreams and to him it was like a blink of an eye. But his legs hurt terribly and he was worn out. He glanced back at the stairs, glaring at them, and then turned to look down the hall, hoping it was going to be some terribly cliché going-on-forever-stretch-of-hall that led to nowhere. It wasn't. It was the usual hall. The only thing out of place was the strange light coming from behind his slightly ajar bedroom door. _

_He walked forward, grabbed the handle, and pulled it open, spilling a pool of neon blue light onto the floor, illuminating himself and the hall. His eyes widened. Instead of his room there was a flood of glowing water, the only thing stopping it from dumping into the hall appeared to be a membrane extended over the threshold of his door._

_Someone drifted by, pausing, turning to look at him. He didn't remember her name, for some reason, but he remembered the feeling he got when he was around her. It bubbled inside him now, like a pot of boiling water, frothing at the edges._

"_Danny…" Her voice sounded strange, hollow and echoy, "You…you're here…? Why?"_

"_Huh?" He was confused, he didn't understand how she knew his name when he obviously knew her put she herself had no name, "I…don't know what you mean."_

"_Danny's back…?" Came another voice, equally eerie, and a boy with dark skin floated up beside the girl dressed all in black, "When…why…he cares…?"_

"_I don't know who you people are." The words came out before he could stop them and the two people in the water-like substance blinked sorrowfully at him before moving forward, their hands out stretched. _

"_You forgot us?" The girl asked, "After all we'd done for you? You forgot?" Her hand passed through the membrane but it was no longer covered in flesh; it was a rotted skeletal hand, reaching for his face. He screamed and threw himself back against the wall, trying to run down the hall, but there were walls on either side of him now. He was trapped. _

_More people were reaching for him, their decayed hands grasping at his shirt, his hair, anything they could get a hold of. He struggled against them as they continued to call his name and ask why he forgot them, pulling him, moaning like zombies from a horror film. They converged on him, spilling out, pressing against him and he in turn was pressed back against the wall, crying out in terror at these horrible things his memories had become. _

_And then he came out and made it worse. He just floated out of the water, through the membrane, not changing into the undead creatures like the others had, hovering in the air just above the mob. His brilliant green eyes were sad, flooded with tears, his white hair was limp and dirty, scuffled, and his outfit was torn, ripped. He looked like he was covered with a thin layer of dust, like an old toy doll someone had left in the attic and forgotten about for years._

"_It hurts more than anything," He whispered and it rang above the groans of the others, "Because you forgot __**me**__…"_

Danny woke up screaming, sweat beading on his forehead, breath ragged, the cries of terror ripping at his throat, the dreadfulness of the dream-turned-nightmare pounding in his mind right in step with his furiously beating heart. He didn't even notice the lights flicker on, ZeE dive to his side as Alex rushed to get help, all he could do was scream and scream and let the tears burn at his eyes. It was true; he had forgotten them all. He was a monster. And that was what made him scream.

-------

I am such a dark and twisted person. Look at that nightmare! I have to say, thought, it was partially influenced by a movie I saw called 'X'. Whew! Talk about bloody! And I think no more Megatokyo for yours truly as well, dang, the l33t is fr3aking taking 0ver! Ah! L00k! It's h3r3! Run for your lif3!

No, seriously, l33t belongs to Megatokyo. Not me. And Danny Phantom and co belong to Butch Hartman. But Alex and ZeE are my buddies; please do not take them…! Thanks! Please leave me a review! Byes!


	7. 6 Remedies For Memories

I don't know what's worse, me torturing Danny and enjoying or shoving all the l33t in here? n0, l33t is g00d. Torturing Danny is just plain fun…! XD

**Six: Remedies for Memories**

"You've been acting weird since last night, man," ZeE said in a low voice, spearing a piece of egg on his fork and putting it in his mouth, speaking past it, "I mean, we're all a little weird and I dunno if this is some sort of halfa thing you have once a month or something but your moodiness is really bugging me."

Danny didn't respond, his brow furrowed, more playing with his food than eating it. He was contemplating a way to escape, trying to recall of the things he'd learned about Ed's School since he'd been there. But it was like a blur of happy memories; he could barely remember the paths he'd taken the night before, the moments smudged together at the edges, making him lose his focus. His thoughts would take sudden turns of their own as his ears caught the melody that was constantly playing in the background, making him wonder what was for lunch later or what they were doing after breakfast. It was these moments when he'd shake himself and set his thoughts straight again. But having ZeE and Alex chattering away in his ear wasn't helping.

"Danny…!" Alex sounded almost like he was whining, "Quit moping, you look like you've lost a million dollars on the streets on New York!"

"I have lost something…" Danny murmured, not looking up from the mess of food on his tray, "All the important things that I shouldn't have forgotten but I have."

"And what did you forget?" ZeE asked cheekily. The halfa shot him a glare and then turned away, closing his eyes and tilting his head back.

"Precious memories," He said in such a low voice that the other two almost couldn't hear him over the noise of the cafeteria, "Treasured memories…memories that should not have been forgotten but have…memories of a land far back in time…memories of a home…" A frown came across his face and ZeE and Alex shared a glance; Danny sure was acting weird, "Memories of loved ones…memories of friends…memories of fun times…memories of a pure night sky filled with stars…"

"Danny, are you okay?" Alex asked but the boy didn't respond.

"Memories of peace and quiet…memories that I wish I'd held on to…memories of things that are shrouded in tears and darkness…" Danny's hands were clenched into trembling fists on the table top and several of the other kids had stopped to see what was going on, "Memories in memories…memories that I cannot recall…memories of smiles and laughter…memories of who I am…memories of things that I should not have shunned but have…" A shiver ran through him and the bracelets of his wrists glowed softly but didn't spark like before, "Memories unable to pass that wall of regret…memories…precious memories…long forgotten memories…empty memories…memories…treasured memories…"

"Daniel." The group of kids parted and several men in blue walked forward. Danny opened his eyes and turned towards them, "You are needed for medical exams. Please come with us."

"Nuh-uh!" Danny shot up and jumped over the table, scattering food and drink everywhere, leaping from one table to the next, "Can't catch me!"

"Get him." The man who had spoken ordered and the other men were after Danny in a split second. ZeE, Alex, and several other teens cried out, throwing themselves out of the way as the men barreled along.

"Go, Danny, go!" ZeE cheered from the floor, "Run, run, run! Ouch!"

"Don't encourage him! He's going to get in big trouble for this!" Alex moaned, "And we might too!"

"Crud…!" ZeE's flashing bluish-gray eyes followed the chase around the cafeteria, worry etched into his face. Danny, meanwhile, was doing a brilliant job of avoiding capture. No doubt his almost two years of fighting ghosts had honed his skills and, despite what a klutz he usually was, when it came to fighting (or in this case just running away) he became quite agile and quick.

A cocky grin of determination had split his features as he went, jumping over other teens, bouncing from one table top to the next, never slipping, always two steps ahead of the men in blue. He had almost made it to the door when one of them actually jumped and grabbed his ankle, sending him crashing to the floor. A struggle ensued. Danny kicked out at the man, catching him in the nose and spurt of blood splattered across the floor but he didn't let go. The other men snatched at the struggling fifteen year old as well. One of them managed to get a hold of his wrists and pin them behind his back while another looped his arm around Danny's neck. Danny bit him and he cried out, reeling backwards. The boy shouted a few choice words, completely oblivious to the fact that every single kid in the cafeteria was watching him, still kicking at the man that clung to his ankle. One man grabbed a fistful of the halfa's hair and yanked backwards savagely. Danny screamed in pain and this gave the other men a chance to grab his other leg, lifting him into the air and dragging him out the door, kicking and screaming all the way.

"Whoa…" One girl whispered though it carried over the silence, "I've never seen anything like that before…"

All the kids started muttering about how Danny had acted but ZeE and Alex were silent, starring at the closed door. Something was up and it wasn't just the fact that Danny was acting weird. If someone didn't want to go to a medical examination, they weren't forced to, the doctors left them alone until the person worked up the courage to face them. Never before had someone had to put up a fight like that. Then again, no one here was a halfa.

------

"Why're you doing this!?" Danny screamed, pulling, twisting, wrestling against his captors' holds, the only thing he saw was the ceiling or the arms or faces of the men holding him, "Let me GO! I don't want to go back there! Let GO!"

He saw the familiar white ceiling of the medical hall, heard a door hiss open, and then was thrown into a chair, the hands holding him releasing their firm grips. He immediately tried to get up and run but one of the men pressed a button on a control panel and green and silver cuffs strapped his arms and legs down.

"Hey! Let me go! Don't leave me in here!" He screamed after the men as they left, leaving him strapped in the chair, "Dang it all…" He lolled his head back and looked up at the ceiling, rage boiling in him, painful little sparks leaping off the bracelets that were, in a way, like the Specter Deflector (I'd forgotten what it was called until now XP), "I have to get out of here; whatever's going on here, why ever they're kidnapping kids, I've got to get out of here and tell…and tell…and tell…" He trailed off miserably, his anger dying down in a wave of sorrow. He still couldn't remember people's names, only faces and feelings. It hurt.

"Well, well, well, Daniel," It was the monotone-voiced doctor from before, face and eyes covered, "I heard you gave our staff a bit of trouble. Do you not like the doctor's office?"

"It's all white and boring," Danny growled back, "And you shocked me last time, of course I don't like it here…!" After a brief pause he added, "And you made me forget. You people, whatever that song is that's playing everywhere, it's doing something to me! I can't remember-!"

"There's nothing to remember, Daniel."

"Don't play dumb with me!" Danny shouted, leaning towards the doctor as far as the restraints would let him, "You know! I know you do! Tell me why! Why can't I remember any of their names!? Why can't I remember who they're supposed to be!? Why are my memories so screwed up!? What did you do!?"

Doc sighed, taking a seat at the control panel and unwinding some wires. Danny watched him with blazing blue eyes, his anger returned. He hated this place, he decided, he didn't know what they were planning but he hated this place all the same.

"I'm afraid you're going to have to go to sleep, Daniel," Doc bent forward and stuck something over Danny's head, covering his ears and Danny struggled against it but it did little good, "I suppose you have an addiction to music, right, living in the same room as Alexander?" He snapped something over the boy's face and Danny blew a raspberry into it. Like it helped any.

"What're you doing?" Danny snarled, "Why're you doing it!?"

"Can't tell secrets I don't know." Doc replied flatly, turning some knobs and flipping a switch, "You can just stay here for a couple of hours and I'll come back for you later." He left.

Danny glared at the closed door, his rage making his breathing faster. A few seconds later, that cursed music started playing in his ears and there was nothing he could do about it. It fogged his mind, like the sleeping gas that was probably coming into the mask that was over his face, his eyelids grew heavy, he sank limply into the chair, vision blurred, fighting to stay awake…and inevitably losing.

---------

"You think Danny's gonna be okay? He's been gone for almost four hours." ZeE asked, tossing a plastic ball he'd snatched from the gym up and down in the air, laying on his back on his bed, "He looked really, really upset about something."

"I've never seen anyone act in such a rage before," Alex responded, more to himself than anything, one earphone in his left ear, the other dangling over his chest, "It was insane…! I'm sure he's fine, though, ZeE, I don't think you have to worry. Danny's a tough goober!"

"Goober?"

"What?"

"I never thought I'd hear you say 'goober'."

"Goober. There, I said it again."

"Yeah, but this time you were smiling and-." The door opening cut off the hacker and distracted him, the plastic ball smacking into his forehead and rolling under Danny's bed. Standing in the threshold was a woman in blue and Danny. Actually, the woman was standing and Danny was swaying on the spot, his eyes dulled, half-closed, a giddy little smile on his lips.

"Daniel has gone through some rough examination," Said the woman, "He's currently under the heavy influence of a medical drug and needs care. Alexander, take those ear bugs out right now." Alex did so slowly, his eyes locked on Danny's strange expression, "Good boy. Now, go on Danny, go to your friends."

She nudged him into the room and he took a couple of shaky steps forward before bursting into a fit of giggles and collapsing. The woman closed the door, leaving Alex to heft Danny into a more upright position while ZeE, in a hurried effort to get to the other two, got tangled in his bed sheets.

"Danny, are you okay!? Danny answer me, come on!" Alex lightly shook the other boy, searching his face for some sign of recognition but Danny just sat there grinning, spurting out little giggles every now and again, limp as a rag doll and just as responsive as one.

"What's wrong with him!?" ZeE had finally managed to get untangled and was crouching beside Alex on the floor, pushing Danny's black bangs out those dull blue eyes, "He's acting like he's wasted! Danny?" Light fingers tapped the halfa's cheek and the boy rolled his head on his shoulders, turning his vacant smile on ZeE, "Man, you're freaking me out…!"

"Hee, hee," Danny sniggered, sprawling into Alex's lap, "Ahahaha! It's so funny…!" He gave a shout of a laughter and the resided into his giggling again before continuing, "I don't care…!"

"You don't…what, I don't understand." Alex pushed the drugged Danny off of him, "And you're scaring the crap out of me."

"I don't care…because there's nothing to care about…!" Danny laughed, rolling around on the carpet floor like a dog rolling in the dirt, "No, no, no…! No nothing! Nothing no!"

"He's stoned or something," ZeE muttered, "I've met a couple guys like this. They don't think, they just talk and they don't even know what they're doing most of the time."

"He's not stoned or wasted or whatever," Alex growled, hooking his arms under Danny's elbows and attempting to drag the boy to his bed, "It's just some sort of medical reaction thingy. I dunno, help me over here…!"

The two managed to get Danny into the bed and after a moment of laughing seemingly at nothing, the halfa settled down and closed his eyes. Eventually the other boys figured he must have fallen asleep because every so often, Danny would twitch or mutter something incoherent. ZeE and Alex ignored him.

--------

"That worked far better than I thought it would have, especially on him."

"Sir?"

"Well, he's a halfa, isn't he. To think that a simple song could block out all those memories, amazing. Are things going well?"

"Yes sir, we have most of the test samples ready to be tested. It's only a matter of time before we get the last two. Would you like us to begin?"

"Yes, I would. And make sure you snag the halfa as a subject, I want to see what results from his contact with this…ectoplasmic essence."

"Of course, Sir."

"And his orange haired friend looks to be a likely candidate. I want him tested as well. And no mistakes, do you understand?"

"Perfectly, Sir."

"Excellent. Now, tell me how that shield over the Yokai Ghost Pits is holding up…"

-------

Whoa! Long chapter and I gave a lot of stuff away if you can put the pieces together! Smoly Hokes!  
Hee, hee, Danny was in a drugged sleep, can you blame him for acting all weird. Don't worry thought, he'll be normal by the next chapter. And whoever was talking there knows about the Yokai Ghosts. Good or bad? Hm, let's find out, shall we?


	8. 7 Thieves

I'm hungry.

**Seven: Thieves  
**

A lot of people claimed he was dead, that he wasn't coming back, that he was gone forever. Most of them had given up hope. And it was saturated into the whole town, stinking like some rotting flesh that no one could find the source to, desperately trying to drag down those that still clung to the desire that young Danny Fenton was alive somewhere. There were only five people in Amity Park that still firmly believed this; Jack, Maddie, Jazz, Sam, and Tucker. Even Valerie Grey had given up on the boy. This was one of the things that wrenched at Tucker the most but, far worse than an almost friend giving up on Danny, was Sam's reaction to the whole affair.

**Normal** Sam would have shouted and raved that they should go on some extreme wild goose chase. **Normal **Sam would have plotted against the government for not doing anything. **Normal** Sam would have him running all over the country in search of clues. **Normal** Sam would not have shut up about the whole thing. But Normal Sam wasn't there anymore to rave, or search, or encourage. Normal Sam seemed to be locked away and didn't seem to be coming out any time soon. And it shook Tucker to the core to see his friend like that; dull-eyed, depressed, silent, and withdrawn.

_Danny…wherever you are, man, you've got to come back…!_ The techie looked away from the Goth who was picking slowly at her food, the noise of the cafeteria a low hum in the background of his thoughts, _We need you way more than you know…!_

-------

"Yeah, well, it's not like you exactly **need** the Trillium Armor to get through it on Challenge Mode…!"

"Have you **fought** against Captain Slag on Challenge Mode!? He's a frigging beast!"

"Dude, Captain Slag is eeeaaasssssyyyyy! Now Fastoon the second time around, with all the invading Cragmites and what-not, **that** was hard! I can't count how many times I got my butt kicked!"

"You got killed on Fastoon!? Are you stupid!? What'd you do, use your wrench!?"

"Shut up!"

"Tch, make me! I bet your Deadlocked Ratchet sucked!"

"Hey! I rock on Deadlocked!"

"I'll bet! Against, what, five year olds!?"

"Cut it out!"

Danny and ZeE got into a tussle in the pool, splashing water everywhere, laughing and pulling at one another. It had been almost two weeks since Danny had come back drugged and he was now enjoying himself immensely, sleeping like he was unconscious, obediently following the orders of those in the blue uniforms. Just like everyone else. And he didn't even pay attention to the bracelets on his wrists. They were there, he accepted them. Whoop-dee-doo.

"Stop it you guys!" Alex shouted from a chair at the pools edge, protectively covering his iPod from the splashing water, "You're acting like a couple of four year olds!"

"Get off it!" ZeE yelled back and then was dunked by Danny only to come back up spluttering, "Oooohhhh, you're in for it now!" And he started splashing after the black haired boy, shouting slightly vulgar names in l33t at the top of his voice as he went.

Danny plunged beneath the water, kicking out a flurry of bubbles behind him, and then shot to the surface, spitting up water and scrambling out of the pool before ZeE could wonder where he went. They weren't the only ones there, plenty of other kids had decided to jump in the pool as well, so it would take a few moments before the hacker would realize that Danny was no longer in the water. He plopped down in chair beside Alex, rubbing his dark hair into a fluff with a towel, out of breath and grinning.

"Enjoying yourself?" Alex smirked and Danny punched his arm, shoving the other boy to the side and knocking his glasses askew, "Jerk!"

"Nah!" Danny blocked a swing from Alex and high fived him instead, "I'm totally bored! Dying with boredom here!"

"That's what I thought." Smirked the brunette, tugging out one of his head phones so that it hung over his bare chest, "So, here's something that might interest you. The other night, at least five to eight kids disappeared from their beds."

"No way…!" Danny hissed, his eyes going huge, "Where'd they go!?"

"Dunno," Alex shrugged, leaning a little closer and lowering his voice, "If you ask any of the staff they'll say that they got sick but that just doesn't make sense. There's something else going on around here."

"Hmmmm…" Danny sat back and squinted his eyes, rubbing his chin and exaggeratedly acting like he was deep in thought, "I have come to the conclusion that…" He couldn't keep the grin off his face, "You're paranoid!"

He howled in laughter as Alex struggled to find a suitable comeback, rolling about in his chair, clutching his side, damp hair flinging droplets of water everywhere. He couldn't ever remember having this much fun before, being so relaxed before! Secrets, secrets, work, work, that was the blur of his past. And pain, a lot of that, and blood, and screaming, and people getting hurt. But he didn't have to worry about all that anymore. He was free of that. Ed's School had made it all better.

-----

Snarls of rage, snapping jaws, claws scrapping roughly cut stone, and a flash of dark violet glowing in the dim light.

"_A trap! I know what they're planning! It's all a trap! We __**have**__ to stop them!"_

"_We cannot stop them if we cannot leave!"_

A howl of rage-flooded anguish.

"_Why!? Why does everything seem to go so wrong!?"_

-----

Danny yawned, rubbing his eyes, and pushed the bathroom door open, ready to fall back into bed and into welcome sleep. But hushed voices pricked his attention and he peered through the darkness of the room, trying to get his eyes to adjust faster. It looked like there were a couple of those blue uniformed men huddled around ZeE's bed…doing something to the young hacker…

Danny opened his mouth to shout at them to get away but someone clamped a cloth over his face and cut off his words, making his struggle and kick out. However, the cloth was not just a cloth; there was chlorophyll on it and in no time, the Fenton boy had slumped forward in the man's arms, unconscious. He and ZeE were both dragged from the room with Alex none the wiser.

------

Cliffie! I'm sorry! I'm sorry this chapter took so long and I'm sorry for the lameness of it and I'm sorry for the cliff hanger ending! Oooohhh, but now we're going to get into the goodies! Stay tuned! Trust me, you don't wanna miss this!

And sorry about all the Ratchet and Clank references. I recently beat Tools of Destruction and started it on Challenge Mode. It's not very challenging so far.


	9. 8 A Hero's Restoration and

I'm having another bad case of Writer's Block. Why does that always happen around chapter eight? This is nuts. And I haven't been able to watch any DP in a while and I darn well miss it…!

**Eight: A Hero's Restoration and A False Paradise**

"I swear, the two of you are like four year olds! You sleep like four year olds, you eat like four year olds, you act like four year olds, and you leave messes everywhere like four year olds!" Alex's voice spliced reality and hazy nightmares into one before yanking Danny from the depths of sleep with a groan to rival a zombies', "Hey, sleepy head, nice to see you awake! You missed breakfast."

"Errggghhh…breakfast…?" Danny moaned and rubbed the sleep from his blue eyes, blinking in the light and sitting up, "Wh-what time is it?"

"Almost lunch time so if you want to eat you'd better get up now. Come on, up you go!" Alex tugged at his arm and dragged him out of the soft comforts of the bed, "ZeE's in the bathroom, he'll be out in a minute. Man, you look just as bad as him."

"I feel terrible…" Danny leaned his weight on the music fanatic's shoulder, clutching his stomach, his cheeks pale, "Oooohhhg, maybe I'm just hungry…"

"That's what I said." ZeE stumbled out of the bathroom, a tinge of green on his face, "But I feel like someone's been jabbing me with needles all night."

"Let's go eat, maybe then you two can get a grip on yourselves." Alex muttered, slinging an arm around ZeE as well and hoisting both boys out the door, "Dudes, this is worse than the time my brother threw up on the kitchen floor…!"

------

"Sam?" Jazz stopped at the bottom of the steps, blinking at the Goth girl who was standing in front of the Fenton Ghost Portal with a strange look on her face, "Did you need something?"

"I've been thinking, maybe we're looking in the wrong places." Sam muttered, her lilac eyes flickering with an odd sort of determination, "Maybe he's in the Ghost Zone."

"I know!" Tucker leapt past Jazz and went to stand beside Sam, "Let's ask Clockwork for help; he **is** the Master of Time!"

"Mm-mm." Sam shook her head, "He won't help us."

"Why wouldn't he? Hasn't he helped Danny before?" Jazz asked, walking up beside the other two.

"Yeah…" Sam said vaguely, "But he, quote on quote, 'won't alter the time stream for one selfish little halfa brat'."

"So, what makes you think he's in the Ghost Zone?" Tucker wiggled his fingers over the control pad but Jazz slapped his hand and shook her head sharply.

"I…I don't know…" The Goth collapsed mentally and withdrew again. Tucker groaned and slapped his forehead; he didn't know how much more of this practically-emo-Sam he could handle.

"We'll find him, Sam, we will." Jazz's words were hollow as she put a comforting hand on Sam's shoulder, "Because…because we need him as much as he needs us…"

------

Danny stood up abruptly from the table and stumbled, one hand over his mouth, the other on his middle, towards the bathroom, ZeE staggering right behind him. He fell into a stall, leaned over the toilet, and vomited what little food had managed to make its way to his stomach, gasping, choking, tears burning at his eyes. Nearby, he could hear ZeE going through the same thing. The bile in his throat burned and left a nasty taste in his mouth; he shivered, his entire frame convulsing, eyes squeezed shut. He felt like his insides were twisting themselves into knots.

Sharp points of pain ripped from his back, the sound of tearing fabric seemed to be magnified by one hundred, and from his arms but he couldn't see because his eyes were closed with pain. The coolness on his cheek told him he was on the floor but his legs ached and cramped and he cried out, or at least he thought he did.

Agony, millions of times the agony that he'd ever endured. It tore him apart. It hurt so bad. He wanted it to stop. He'd do anything to make it-.

It stopped.

His eyes fluttered open and, after a few moments of making sure the pain was not coming back, he gently lifted himself into an upright position. But…wait a minute…something was off…something felt…**wrong**.

"No…! No way…! This…this isn't happening!?" He moaned, fingers with claws tipped in green digging into his black hair, "This **can't** be happening!?" Pupiless blue eyes darted over his body, "It's not possible!" A forked tongue between sharp fangs that could send poison into the blood stream, a curling braid of black hair with a silver arrow on the end floating in the air of its own accord, the spines on his arm leaving scrapes on the walls of the tiny bathroom stall, "I'm Yokai!"

"AAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHGGGG!" A terrified scream sent Danny tumbling head over tail out of the stall and smack into someone else who screamed even louder.

"ZeE!?"

"Danny!? What **is** this!?"

"Stop screaming! Just…just shut up, okay!" Danny leaned heavily against one of the sinks, closing his eyes and taking a deep breath, the end of his scaly tail twitching, "Alright…alright…I don't know what's **really** going on here but the only thing that makes sense is that these guys have somehow managed to draw out our Yokai Ghosts; the power of one of the twelve Chinese Zodiac creatures every human has." He opened his eyes and looked painfully at ZeE, "And…it looks like you're the tiger…"

Indeed, the horrified ZeE now had numerous black stripes etched across his skin, his ears had become like that of a tiger's, his eyes cat-like with slits for pupils, black claws extending from his fingertips, and a long orange, black-striped tail was puffed out behind him.

Danny himself held the powers of the corruptive and lethal Yokai Ghost Snake within him. It had taken him over once and he now loathed his Yokai half as much as he loathed math. The Snake wasn't called the most corruptive Yokai Ghost for no reason; it had almost locked him in that form forever, lusting for power and blood, and had it not been for Sam-.

"Sam!" The halfa cried suddenly, eyes flashing open, his fangs glistening in a smile that was eerie on his Snake body, "Sam! That's her name! I remember!" Dread and sorrow filled him, "Sam…I'd completely forgotten…"

"Hey, Danny, look, man, I don't mean to shatter all your 'repressed girlfriends' crap but I **reeeaaalllly** don't like this! I mean, I-!"

"We have to get out of here!"

"What!?"

"We've got to leave Ed's School! I know someone who can help us! But we have to leave! Like…like tonight! Tonight would be good!"

"But I look like a **freak**!" ZeE whined, tears glistening in his eyes, "And I'm freaking scared, Danny…!"

"Calm down…" Danny took and deep breath and let it out slowly, "Think about stuff that calms you down…" He felt his body rearranging itself into his human form and he smiled at ZeE encouragingly, "Come on, let's go, we've got to start planning."

ZeE's shocked look melted along with his Yokai form and he got shakily to his feet, Danny helping him along.

"So…what're we gonna do?"

"That, my friend, is where your L33t h4ck1ng sk1llz come in!"

-----

"No, see, the only exits are on the upper floors and there's no way we're getting up there. It's maximum security twenty-four seven. The cameras have no blind spots, the men aren't stupid, and there are sensory alarms and fingerprinting door locks." ZeE hissed, trying not to wake Alex from his nap, "So, we can't go up."

"Yeah, yeah, but what's on the bottom floor of this thing? Okay, no, forget that, um…" Danny rubbed his sore neck and squinted at the laptop screen, "Is there anything besides stairs here?"

He and ZeE had returned to the cafeteria as through nothing had happened, passing their absence off as stomach aches, and then retired to their room with Alex. The bespectacled boy had decided he needed a break from the theatrics and had fallen asleep on his bed with his headphones in. This had made ZeE and Danny's job all the more easier.

ZeE had hacked the computer system that ran throughout the building, bringing up file after file after file until the duo had finally found what they wanted. Blue prints. The layout of the building (which turned out to be completely underground beneath an abandoned warehouse), all security measures, and the exact location of every room in the place lay open before them.

"Hmmm…" ZeE keyed something into the laptop and several areas on their map flashed, "There are two working elevators."

"Working?" Danny felt something stir inside him, an idea, "What's that mean?"

"Well, there's one elevator shaft that's been broken down for quite a while and no one's bothered…to…fix it…" His gaze locked with Danny's and he grinned, "That's our escape route."

"Yep." Danny pumped a fist into the air, "Next stop, Amity Park!" He high fived ZeE, jumped off the boy's bed and onto his own, and tugged off his shirt, "We should get some sleep while we still can. Who knows how long we're going to be running."

-----

I stayed up late finishing this chapter and I think it turned out excellent. For those of you who previously read this fan fiction before I had to repost it, chapter three has been added. For some reason, it didn't get uploaded before but now it's there so no worries.

Things are starting to get pieced together, aren't they? Yokai Ghost powers and a daringly planned escape! And Danny's starting to get his memories back! Hurray!

Thanks for reading and please leave me a review!


	10. 9 My Name?

The great escape is coming along with another Indian Jones movie! Yeah!

**Nine: My Name? **

Sneaking out of their room that night was no problem, avoiding the patrolling staff was no problem, finding the abandoned elevator shaft was no problem. The problem came when they actually reached the thing. Together, they'd managed to pry the doors open but what lay before them seemed to be an continuous expanse of dark tunnel going straight up and down forever, cables swaying in a draft. ZeE shivered.

"I dunno if I wanna do this anymore, Danny," He whispered, leaning out over the edge a little bit, "It looks like a long way down…"

"Do you want to get poked full of needles and electrocuted and who knows what else?" Danny snapped back in a harsh murmur, "I sure as heck don't…! Come on!" He stepped back a bit, ran forward, and jumped with outstretched hands, grabbing at the thick cables. He caught them, paused to catch his breath and slow his heartbeat, and looked back at ZeE whose face was pale, "Let's go, we don't have all night! Hurry, before someone shows up! Jump!"

ZeE nodded to himself, moved away from the elevator shaft, ran forward, leapt and caught the cable beside Danny. He grinned in relief and Danny nodded, motioning that they should start climbing. ZeE started pulling himself up, his laptop slung across his back, and the black haired boy followed suit. Creaks and groans accompanied their journey upward, the cables swung with their movements, and their hands and legs soon became sore and calloused.

"How much farther do you think?" Danny asked, pausing a moment to wipe some sweat from his forehead, "It feels like we've been doing this forever!"

ZeE was about to answer when there was a horrible tearing sound and the cable the hacker clung to snapped, whipping about in the air before beginning to fall, taking ZeE right along with it! The orange haired boy screamed and started clawing at the air and, quick as a flash, Danny grabbed one of ZeE's grasping hands. The two hung there for a moment or two, panting, eyes wide, Danny clinging to his cable with one hand and his legs wrapped around it and the fingers of his other hand holding tightly onto ZeE.

"Are you okay?" Danny rasped and ZeE nodded in response, shocked into silence, and Danny pulled him back onto another cable, giving him a weary smile, "It can't be that much farther, right? Let's get out of this stink hole…!"

After what seemed like hours, they made it to the top of the shaft. They had no problem with the doors; the things were smashed open and looked like something had left some serious claw marks on it. But it didn't matter. They were free. Danny helped pulled ZeE out of the elevator and they both stood, looking through the holes in the warehouse roof at the stars sparkling in the black sky. Danny took a deep breath, relishing in the sweet, fresh, outdoor air. ZeE tugged his arm.

"We should get going. You lead, I don't know where Amity Park is."

"I don't know where we're at." Danny stepped carefully out through the rusted door and out into the night, looking around, "Lucky us, looks like we're near the dump. That's about two hours away from the outskirts of Amity Park. If we run, we can make it at least by mid-morning."

"Then why're we standing here talking about it!? Let's go, man, go!"

-------

Saturdays were the bane of Sam's existence. They were torturously slow and each moment seemed to be filled with emptiness. She had used to love Saturdays; they meant getting away from her parents and hanging out with Tucker and Danny. She winced. It hurt to think about him.

A clatter against her window snapped her out of her dreary thoughts and she turned her head slowly to look at it. The curtains were drawn against the morning sunlight but she figured it was Tucker, trying to get her to come out. Agonizingly slow, she sat up off her bed and made her way slowly, in a sort of dead haze, to the window, pushing back the curtains and opening the glass.

"Tucker, I've said it a million times, I'm not-."

"Sam!"

The Goth almost had a heart attack right then and there, her breath catching, her heart rate speeding up, her eyes widening. She was delusional. She had gone insane. Or she was dreaming. Or something. It was something other than what she was seeing here!

"D-Danny!?" She choked out his name and it tasted so sweet, "Danny! Danny! Danny!"

"Shhhhh!" He hissed, waving his hands, glancing around, "I don't want the whole town to know I'm here yet! Hey, can you toss me down a rope or something?"

"Yeah, yeah, hold on…!" She was reluctant to leave the window, like if she looked away then he was going to disappear again and she'd realize it had been nothing but a vision. She secured the rope of bed sheets and tossed it out the window. Danny scrambled up it quickly and fell into her room. A moment later another boy fell on top of him and they rolled away from the window to allow Sam to pull the rope back in, close the window, and shut the curtains.

"Sam, this is ZeE, he was kidnapped too." Both boys were unbelievably scruffy and there were several scratches and bits of dirt smeared over them, "Sorry about the mess, we've been running cross country and back alleys all day."

"Danny!" Sam wrapped her arms around him and squeezed until she lost feeling in her arms, tears sparkling in her eyes, "Do you know how much we've missed you!? Oh my gosh, I can't believe you're real!" She stepped back and looked him up and down, "Go ghost."

"What?" Danny stopped what he was doing, which was making sure his spine was still intact, "What're you talking about? Go ghost? I…I don't think I want to do that again…"

"Man," The one called ZeE was still on the floor, looking exhausted, "I wouldn't want to do that again either." He rubbed his face in his hands, "That was scary."

"What was scary? Danny, you have to tell me what's going on? Why don't you want to go ghost?"

"'Cause…'cause last time I turned into my Yokai Ghost form…I almost…got stuck like that…" His brilliant blue eyes shone with fear, something Sam had rarely seen, "And if it wasn't for you and Tucker-Tucker!" A light come on, "Where's Tucker?!"

"Probably at his house…" Sam said warily, "Should I call him?"

"Yeah, yeah!" Danny looked excited about something and he turned to ZeE, "ZeE, man, I'm remembering stuff! I can remember Sam and Tucker and school and Dash and…!" He kept going, rambling off names and places though he didn't seem to be able to put things together quite right; he could only recall names but put no pictures to the names, only feelings.

Realization hit Sam. He couldn't remember his ghost powers. He couldn't remember that he was the town's hero. He couldn't remember that he was Danny Phantom.

------

"OUCH!" Danny yelped and jerked away from Tucker who almost dropped his precious PDA at the sudden movement, "That hurt!"

"Sorry!" Tucker responded in an annoyed sort of voice, "But, dude, if you want these things off you gotta let me mess with them!"

"Ow!" Danny twitched again as the bracelets on his wrists sent a spark through him, "Why can't you do it ZeE?"

"Because," The hacker spoke through the mouthful of food that came from the numerous amount Sam had managed to sneak upstairs, "I hack websites and computer files. Not scary, advanced technology wristband stuff."

"Hey, hey, hold still!" Tucker cried, typing faster on his PDA, "I think I got it! Sam, come here!" The Goth leaned over her friend's shoulder, looking confused.

"All I see is numbers and stuff."

"Ahhhhh…just a little bit more…there!" Tucker looked up expectantly and whooped aloud as the bracelets clicked open and fell off Danny's wrists, "Oh yeah!"

"I don't even know why I had them on." Danny confessed, rubbing his wrists, "I mean, there's something that tells me it was important but I can't remember what it was."

"Danny it was your ghost powers." Sam's eyes locked with is blue ones, "You have to remember!" She grabbed his hands unexpectedly, "Come on, Danny, think! What've we been doing for almost two years, huh!? What've we been fighting off!? What is that makes you so special!?"

"I…I…I…"

"_Then why're you still holding my hands?"_

"Gah!" Danny's eye widened, "Ember!"

"She had good music." ZeE commented.

"Shut it!" Sam and Tucker snapped at him and he quailed under their angry gazes.

"I…I can't…she did something…" Danny yanked his hands from Sam's grasp and fell back onto her bed, burying his face in them, trying to remember, "Errrhhhggg…!"

"_Beware!"_

"_That's against the rules, punk…!"_

"_We're not lovebirds!"_

"_Have you lost your half or our mind!?"_

"_Don't scare me like that!"_

"_Hey Fen-turd!"_

"_Aw, young love, they say it never lasts…!"_

"_You don't know the half of it."_

"_Fight it Danny!"_

"_This is so wrong!"_

"_Danny!"_

"_I'm…"_

"Goin' ghost!" The familiar blaze of cold white light, the familiar feeling of freedom, the familiar weightlessness. Glowing green eyes flashed and a grin split his face, "Danny Phantom…is back!"

------

All those lines…um…they were just ones that popped into my head. I haven't watched DP in a while and so my memory of good lines to use was a little vague. I was planning on using some from Ultimate Enemy until I realized that this was set before that so it totally screwed over any cool lines I planned on using. Darn…!

So, Danny's got all his memory back! Now what's he gonna do? I dunno. See you in the next chapter and thanks for reading! Bye!


	11. 10 Foretelling

Writer's Block must be contagious or something…! Stopwatch-To-Oblivion sent me her seventh 'Earthdance' (which I highly suggest!!) chapter to me going on about her WB and the next thing I know it's smacking me in the face too…!

AHHHG! And I totally just realized I freaked this up bad! I was re-reading the first MIR and I realized that Jazz knew about Danny's ghost powers in that and that I **had** placed it after 'Ultimate Enemy'! (slams her head into the keyboard continuously) I! AM! SUCH! AN! IDIOT! So, I'm sorry for the screw up, this was, I guess, supposed to be set up after UE…!

**Ten: Foretelling**

"Whoa…" ZeE's mouth was hanging wide open, his eyes wide, a handful of chips sliding out of his fingers and onto the floor, "So **that's** what a halfa is! Man, that was sw33t!"

"Huh? Wait, what?" Sam looked from Danny to ZeE and back again, "What do you mean 'that's what a halfa looks like' and what the heck did you say!?"

"Dud3, 1 kn0w!" Danny laughed, hovering inches off the floor, "1t's sw33t l337, n0?"

"Danny, dude, what're you saying!?" Tucker was exasperated, even **he** didn't understand what was being said, "Heeelllloooo!? Can we know what's going on!?"

"Oh, sorry," Danny sank back to the floor, shaking his head, one white gloved hand running through his thick white locks, "It's kind of a long story so I'll tell you quickly. Well, that is," He glance at ZeE who looked just as troubled, "The parts I can remember."

It didn't take that long; Danny, with ZeE's help, managed to piece together what he could, recounting everything from waking up in Ed's School to escaping the night before. He even remembered the torturous experiments tested on him by Doc and the others and the horrible transformation he and ZeE had gone through.

"And that's why I knew I had to come back to Amity Park." Danny was still in his ghost form but was now sitting on the bed beside Sam, glaring at the floor like he could burn holes into it, "Because I need to get a hold of Amethyst."

"Yeah…" Tucker stroked his chin, thinking, "Amethyst is a Yokai Ghost Fox, she'll know exactly what's going on…! Let's get over to your house right now!"

"Nuh-uh!" Danny hurriedly shook his head, "I am **not** announcing my return like this! There's still work to be done and there is no way I could do any of it with paparazzi trailing after Phantom and my parents chasing after Fenton! We're gonna have to sneak into my house, steal that gem she left me, and get down to the Ghost Portal."

"Sounds good to me," Sam stood up, "Alright, we should go now while we still have some daylight."

"If you don't mind, I'm going to stay here and take a nap." ZeE muttered, "Got any place where I could sleep without anyone bothering me?"

"Try my closet, my parents never go in there." Sam pushed the door open for him and he immediately curled up on the floor, "Alright now that he's taken care of, let's go! Tucker, call Jazz and tell her to distract her parents! If she asks, just let her know Danny's back but she has to keep it a secret!"

As Tucker snatched up Sam's phone and started dialing, the Goth turned to Danny who was starring at the wall without really seeing it, thinking quietly to himself. On a sudden impulse, she grabbed his hand and squeezed it tightly, ignoring his flushed face that turned red even in his ghost form.

"I missed you." She murmured softly and he took her other hand, pulling her close.

"I-." He stopped himself, sighed, and let go, stepping away and shaking his head, "I was an idiot, I'll admit it. I didn't think, **again**, and now look what's happened."

"Danny, I-!"

"Alright, that's set! Let's get out of here!" The two jumped a foot apart as Tucker leapt up beside them; the techie eyed them both curiously, "Were you about to kiss…?"

"N-no!" Danny stuttered, unable to stop the blush from creeping into his face, "Come on, Tucker, quit screwing around! We're leaving!" He grabbed his two friends around the waist and shot off through the ceiling and into the clear morning sky.

Minutes later the trio was digging through every spot in Danny's room they could reach. And Danny was not exactly the cleanest person in Amity Park.

"Danny…what the heck is this!?" Tucker held up **something** that words could no describe.

"I think a better word would be 'what' was it." Sam made a face, "When's the last time you **really **cleaned your room, Danny!?"

"Not in…um…a month. But shove stuff around every so often; haven't been able to that in a while since…yeah…" He winced at the blurred memories of Ed's School and continued to search for the violet gem Amethyst had given him one year ago.

"Hey, wait a minute," Tucker paused in his search under the bed, "Didn't you give the gem to Sam?"

"Yeah, well, I sort of gave it back." The Goth responded, "I didn't want my parents getting a hold of it and thinking it was some priceless piece of jewelry they could, I dunno, sell for millions…!"

"What a confidence booster-hey!" Danny withdrew his head from the forgotten depths of his closet, "Found it!" He got hushing motions from the other two, "Opps, sorry! I got it though!" He jangled the shining violet gem on it's chain, grinning, "Let's get down to the Ghost Portal; we'll take the Specter Speeder, I don't want to waste any more energy staying in my ghost form."

The trio snuck easily into the lab with the aid of Danny's invisibility and intangibility, snickering at Jazz's attempts to keep her parents busy by picking their brains with her psychology. Once they reached the lab, Danny dropped back into his human form, shaking his head to get his black hair from his face and opened up the Fenton Ghost Portal as Tucker and Sam started up the Specter Speeder.

"Man, it feels like forever…" Danny took and deep breath and let it out as he took a spot between his two best friends, "This feels **so** right!" And he threw his arms around their shoulders and pulled them into a huge hug.

"Uhhhhh…" Tucker blinked as his glasses slid down his nose, "Danny…are you okay?"

"Yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm fine…!" He let them go, turning to the instrument panel before him, "Let's head just inside the Ghost Zone and I'll," His cheeks turned pink, "Get Amethyst."

The engine seemed loud to their ears as they waited with bated breath for Jack or Maddie to rush down the stairs at the noise. They got lucky though. The swirling vortex of green was laid out before them and they took it, feeling just like old times. Only this time, they had strange school and Yokai Snake Danny threatening on the horizon.

"Erm…" The Specter Speeder hovered in the bizarre world and Danny clutched his fingers around the gem, looking a little sheepish as the other two looked at him expectantly, "I…I really…" He closed his eyes, muttered something to himself that sounded oddly like 'find a happy place', and hauntingly said, "A-Amethyst…? Um, we need some help. So could you like, come out?"

He cracked one eye open and the other two peered out the windshield but nothing happened.

"Well," Sam crossed her arms, "That was a load of-."

A loud rumble shook the Speeder and, from far down below in the deepest depths of the Ghost Zone, a flare of light was just visible to them.

"Whoa…!" Tucker's eyes were huge, "That was…different!"

"HALFA!" A familiar voice screamed in utter delight and relief and someone flew through the bottom of the Speeder and smothered Danny in a hug, licking his cheek repeatedly.

"Ahhhg! Ew! Amethyst, ew, get off! Uhg!" Danny scrambled underneath the human formed Yokai Fox, pushing her off of himself and onto Tucker's surprised lap, "Okay, that was wrong!" He scowled, rubbing his sleeve on his cheek, "You don't **lick** people to say hello!"

"I guess she still has a lot to learn…" Sam smiled, "So, what's new?"

"Too much!" Amethyst squeezed herself between the protesting techie and the side of the Speeder, "I've got **a lot** you three should know!" Her grin was gone, her happiness had vanished, and she was all serious, "And I **don't** think you're gonna like it…"

"I think we might know some small details already," Tucker glanced at Danny who frowned and turned his hard gaze to the floor of the vehicle, "But let's get out of here before someone like Walker decides to kick us around…!"

As Danny, carrying Sam, and Amethyst, carrying Tucker, dropped through the Manson's roof (dang, I'm skipping around a lot) and into the Goth girl's room, they knew something was wrong. And it wasn't just the fact that Sam's closet door was hanging off its hinges and her clothes scattered across the room that gave it away.

"ZeE's gone!" Danny cried, forgetting his friends for a moment as he dashed to the closet and looked desperately inside, knowing he'd find nothing.

"Claw marks…?" Amethyst stepped up to the gashes scraped across the dark paint on Sam's walls as the two humans starred around in shock, "Y-Yokai! This smells like Yokai Tiger!"

"ZeE!" The halfa moaned, sinking to his knees, "They must've snatched him while we were gone! Poor guy…he never stood a chance…!" He buried his face in his hands, cursing under his breath.

"Sam, are your parents home?" Tucker asked and the Goth shook her head, responding that they were out for the rest of the day shopping or something, "Good, because I think this might be as good a time as any for Amethyst to tell us what she knows."

Dark violet eyes flickered with a bubbling rage and the Yokai Fox let out a feral snarl, only to have it echoed in an angry hiss that came from Danny. His eyes had lost their pupils, dangerous fangs curled past his lower lip, a forked tongue flickering past them.

"Yokai…" Amethyst's eyes got huge, "So, they got you too, halfa." Enraged but keeping it in, she sat on the floor, "Well, I suppose Tucker is right. Danny settle down, you're not going to get anywhere by changing." The half-turned halfa glared at her, saw her stony expression, and slowly reverted, going to sit beside Sam on her bed as Tucker rightened a chair and took it, "It starts…with a man named Yulcifer."

-----

(starts sobbing because she's been throwing you so many evil cliffies) Dang it all! D'Arvit, I hate Writer's Block! Now they're all OOC! (sobs harder)  
I'm sorry for the annoyingness of this chapter and its dumb cliff hanger but I've had my hands full lately with play practice and OM and Band so I hardly get time to write anymore.   
Thanks for putting up with me! Tell me what you thought! Byes!


	12. 11 Let Your Ghost Sense Be Your Guide

Egad, can I go die now? I need to finish this and then get back on track with 'Shadows Are Supposed to Stay Sleeping'. Crud, I can tell this chapter's going to suck.

**Eleven: Let Your Ghost Sense Be Your Guide**

"Hold on!" Danny was on his feet and Amethyst looked at him, pausing in the act of beginning her explanation, "You can tell us on the way!"

"The way to where?" Tucker asked apprehensively.

"To wherever the heck they took ZeE!" Danny snapped angrily, "I am **not** sitting around here when they could be hurting him or…or worse!"

"My parents are going to think I've been kidnapped…" Sam muttered but then a grin split her face, "It should be fun."

Amethyst rolled her eyes and stood up as well, shifting into her fox form. 

"_Well then, I'm not wasting time arguing with a ticked off halfa," _She blinked her violet eyes at Danny, _"Are you taking Sam?"_

"Yeah," Danny held out his arms and, after much muttering and blushing, was soon floating in the air, intangible, holding Sam, "You ready."

Tucker, clinging to the red fur on the Yokai Fox's back where he rode, nodded and shuddered as the feeling of intangibility swept across his being, closing his eyes so he wouldn't have to see them go through the ceiling. And then they were soaring through the sky, invisible.

"So…" Sam prompted Amethyst to continue her tale, "What about this Yulcifer guy?"

"_He's a genius, for one thing,"_ Amethyst's violet eyes blazed suddenly, _"But he's not a good genius. Evil genius is a better word for it, indefinitely. He's greedy, cold-hearted, and will do anything to get what he wants with little regard to others."_

"Sounds like your typical bad-guy to me…!" Tucker muttered, scowling at the thought.

"_I wouldn't say things so quickly, Tucker. This man is a ghost expert; and not of the hunting variety like Danny's parents. He studies them and he knows about the Ghost Zone and the Yokai Ghost pits. He's dangerous."_

"I'll say, but how did he find all this out?" Sam asked; Danny hadn't said a word, concentrating too hard on finding ZeE, "I mean, the Yokai aren't exactly the most noticeable ghosts in the Ghost Zone."

"Yeah, I bet half the Ghost Zone doesn't even know you guys exist!" Tucker put in.

"_It's true, we don't get out much, not even the non-fighting Yokai dare to venture out of the pits unless there is an emergency. But Yulcifer is cunning. A genius, as I've said. I'm not completely sure how but it seems he managed to find his way into the Ghost Zone, possibly by accident, and fell all the way down to the bottom."_ Amethyst chuckled but it came out as a high-pitched growl, _"Most humans would have been scared witless by the sight of our pits. Bloodstained wastelands, mountains, caves, and deep valleys smeared in blood and dried bones littering the area. Tucker don't you dare throw up on me."_

Tucker clapped a hand over his mouth and squeezed his eyes shut. He did seem to be turning a little green. The group veered through the sky, the Yokai Ghost Fox following the halfa.

"_Anyway, Yulcifer knows greed when he sees it and when he saw it in a sub-clan of the Yokai Snake; the Cobras, just as insatiable as human world ones; he jumped at the chance for information."_ Amethyst shook her fox head sadly, ears back, _"Even though we fight, in a time of need Yokai would band together to over come the odds if it put all of us in terrible danger. The Yokai Cobras betrayed that trust, the only trust Yokai Ghosts have among one another and sided with Yulcifer for food and the chance to fight. He promised them this much if they would help him and they agreed, aiding him in erecting a barrier over all of the Yokai Ghost pits to keep the rest of us locked inside; unable to interfere. Then he had them round up as many teens as they could in the human world and drag them to that warehouse,"_ Danny flinched, _"And injected them Yokai blood and substances that would trigger a Yokai transformation."_

"But why's he doing it?" Danny snarled, pulling up short in mid-air, his back to them, Sam still in his arms though she was looking over his shoulder so that her worried gaze locked with Tucker's, "What's he trying to do?"

"_From what we; that is the Yokai Wolves and myself, have managed to put together…"_ She was hesitant to continue, ears flattening even more, and Tucker felt the red fur underneath him bristle with discontentment, _"He's trying to become immortal."_

"And…and how is doing what he's done to Danny and ZeE going to help him achieve that?" Sam's lilac eyes flashed as she thought about how she could strangle the man who had harmed her friend, "Couldn't he just, I dunno, look for the Holy Grail?"

"_I think…I think he's trying to summon Zodiac, the Yokai Ghost Chimera of the Twelve and that could very well destroy the Earth."_

"What-?" Danny swore loudly and green energy spiraled off his body, his green eyes glowing such a brilliant green they were almost white with rage, "Why didn't you say that before! Now I **have** to hurry!"

"But Danny!" Tucker's nerves were all the more on edge from Amethyst's constant whimpering noises and high-pitched growls, "We don't even know where-!"

"The park!" Sam pulled herself into a more upright position by throwing her arms around Danny's neck and hoisting herself upwards, "It's got wide open spaces but enough coverage so that if you needed to stay hidden for a time then it wouldn't be a problem! If I was going to summon something to destroy the Earth that's where I would do it!"

"Sam, I know I've said it before but you are such a frigging genius!" And the halfa kissed her full on the mouth. 

"_Whoa, whoa, whoa!"_ The Yokai Fox bucked slightly and Tucker squeaked, almost losing his glasses, _"Come on! We don't have time for kissing! Gah!" _And she plowed right into them, sending Danny spinning, _"__**Move**__ halfa!"_

Danny's and Sam's face were identical shades of red as they headed towards the park. It took them a while to get to the park and then a little more time to find where Yulcifer was planning his twisted summoning. And by the time they landed in the trees and moved towards the open space before them it was dark out.

"Yeah, that's a summoning circle alright," Sam whispered, "And a big one too."

"Zodiac is said to be big enough to swallow the heavens," Amethyst, in her human guise, whispered back, "But it's probable that he is just very, very, very, big."

"Comforting thought." Tucker muttered.

"There's ZeE!" Danny pointed at one of the eleven cages placed in a circle around the diagram burned into the grass; the usually eccentric hacker was slouched forward, his forehead on his knees, looking for all the world like a defeated warrior, "Where's his computer?"

"I think it's still back at Sam's house." Tucker replied, "Why?"

"It'll make him move." Danny crouched low, shaking white hair from his face, ready to spring, when someone grabbed his arm.

"Wait, halfa," Amethyst crouched beside him, "Yulcifer has no doubt set up traps in order to catch ghosts like myself and you, sort of. But my point is that there is no way you're getting in there like you are."

Danny starred at her for a moment and then, his face set in a grim frown, nodded and flashed back into human form before their eyes. Straightening up, he turned his crystal blue eyes on Sam and Tucker who both nodded. They were ready.

But before anyone could move a sweet melody rang out over the park, making all of them look back towards the summon circle. There didn't seem to be anyone around except the other teens in the cages and all of them were unexpectedly drowsy looking. 

"That…that song…!" Amethyst's eyes were wide with realization and horror, "That's a ghost lullaby! Don't listen to it!" And she whirled about to face three very dazed looking human teenagers, "Sam? Danny? Tucker?"

"So…pretty…" Danny murmured, walking forward rather drunkenly, slouching slightly, a ditzy smile on his face, "Must…get…closer…"

"Danny, no!" 

"Wwwwooooowwwww…" Sam giggled, a sound that was odd coming from the Goth and started moving forward as well.

"Sam! Snap out of it!" Amethyst grabbed her arm and the Goth shook her head, blinking, coming out of the hypnotic daze, "Don't listen to the song! It's a ghost lullaby, meant to hypnotize humans and lure them to their deaths!" She saw someone stagger forward at the edge of her vision, "Tucker!" She grabbed his arm as well and he snapped out of the mesmerizing trance induced by the music.

"Wh-what?" The dark skinned boy looked around, pushing his glasses up his nose with a free hand, "Where's Danny going?"

"Crap! The halfa!" Amethyst let go of Tucker to grab at Danny who was a few feet a head of her but as soon as she did, the techie slipped right back into the trance and started forward again, "Darn it all!" 

Using her free hand, the Yokai Ghost Fox slipped her necklace (liberated from Danny when they had met up again) over her head, shoved it into Sam's hands, let go of the Goth and grabbed Tucker who shook himself back into reality again. Then, she forced Sam and Tucker to hold each other's hands, something that made them both wince and blush. 

"The Yokai Ghost powers saturated into that gem will keep you two from feeling the effects of the ghost lullaby! Stay here and don't move! I'm going after Danny!" In her agitation, Amethyst's fox ears and tail had popped out, "I'm sorry for this…"

"Apologies later!" Sam cried, "Go after him **now**! He's almost into the circle!"

Amethyst whirled and jumped towards the halfa but it was too late. The toe of Danny's shoe edged into the summoning circle and a brilliant, neon green light lit up around the entire circle, casting them all into an unearthly sheen. All Sam and Tucker could do was cling to one another as they watched Amethyst rush towards the summon circle only to get blasted backwards by an explosion of light, skidding across the ground to land at their feet. 

Danny meanwhile, still seemed to have no idea what it was he was doing. He was standing in the one spot in the circle that did not have a cage on it, completely oblivious the beams of light shooting out from the ground around him. Until one blasted him right through his chest, nearly knocking him off his feet. He shouted in pain as it evaporated into the air, digging his fingers into his black hair, sagging forward, unable to fall to the ground due to some invisible force. Another beam pierce through him and he screamed again.

"Danny!" 

"Halfa!"

"Danny!"

Their cries were useless and any attempts to get closer were met with eruptions of light that knocked them back again. One more beam of light shot through Danny again, right through the heart, and it jerked him clean off his feet, sending him spiraling into the air, the light still splintering through him. Beams of light were shooting through the other twelve teens as well. Screams filled the air and then, all at once like millions of people simultaneously tearing pieces of paper apart, there was a horrible ripping sound.

Danny slammed into the ground and didn't move, the other kids in the cages slumped to the floor, glassy eyed, and, for a split second or two, the twisting, ghostly shapes of twelve different animals hung in the air before getting sucked into the center of the circle and vanishing from view.

"Danny!" Sam screamed and started to run forward but the ground shook and she fell only to rise again and rush towards the boy, Amethyst and Tucker close on her heels, "Danny get up!"

"Sam, we have to hide!" Amethyst scooped up Danny as easily as picking a flower and started back towards the trees, losing her balance every so often as she went because of the tremors, "This could go on for hours until Zodiac finally awakes!"

The trio managed to stumble back into the woods and get a reasonable distance away where they would be safe but still be able to watch out for the Yokai Ghost Chimera. There, Amethyst lay Danny out spread eagle on the grass and stood to the side, letting the Goth and the techie in closer. Danny's eyes were closed and he hadn't moved an inch. Tucker put a two fingers to side of his friend's neck and, after a moment, his eyes widened and filled with tears.

"Th-th-there's no pulse! Th-there's nothing!" He pumped a fist on Danny's chest, wiping tears from behind his glasses, "Come on, Danny, breathe, man! Breathe!"

But the teen did not move.

"Danny, you moron, wake up!" Sam pushed Tucker aside and performed a few quick rounds of CPR but there was no response, "You idiot, you just kissed me! You can't go and die now!" She whirled Amethyst, "Bring him back! You can heal him, can't you?"

"I cannot heal death." Amethyst was curled on the grass, fighting the tears; she had already lost so much, "I cannot heal death…"

"Don't you dare go, Danny! Don't you dare leave us!"

----------

Wow, long chapter for the last one. Just kidding, it's not the end. I would never end it like that. But that was still a lot of information and I'm so sorry I haven't posted in a while but I had ACT's and MME's to do and then OM competition and then I've had play practice after school every day this week so…yeah…busy, busy, busy.

Anyway, thanks for waiting patiently for this chapter and I hope I can get the next one up soon! Please review!


	13. 12 Flirting With Death

This chapter is different from the other ones. I wrote this one _way_ before I started writing Melody in Red 2, when it was still just in concept form and not officially on my to-do list. But, I decided I liked it. It lightens the mood a bit in the darker setting that's been set before. I know, weird to think I could lighten the tone when our favorite ghost hero is looking a little more on the dead side. Don't worry though…it's all been very, very, carefully planned. By Danny Ocean. No, not really. I'm just joking. What can I say? I like the Ocean's movies!

**Twelve: f L i R t I n G w I t H d E a T h**

Danny curled up on the soft surface beneath him, squeezing his eyes shut. He wasn't sure what was going on but he liked having his eyes closed right then. It made everything better somehow. And no force on earth was going to make him-.

"Danny Fenton, open your eyes." Said an Irish-accented female voice, "Come on, Danny-boy, I know you're awake."

"If I open my eyes will the pain come back?" 

"No, there's no pain here, Danny. Everything's fine here. So open your eyes." 

Danny opened his eyes and color exploded before him. It was so vibrant it was almost surreal. He lay beneath the shade of a blue-green-gold willow tree on bright green grass, the sky was an impossibly brilliant blue and cloudless, mountains sparkled with waterfalls and rainbows in the distance, hills and forests rose around him, and the sweet, refreshing scent of flowers floated on a warm summer breeze. Paradise.

"Nice, now stand up." He turned his head and saw a tall woman in a sparkling black and silver dress with long blonde hair and warm brown eyes standing over him, smiling.

"Who are you?" Danny asked, struggling to his feet; his limbs felt like lead, "And where am I?"

"My name is ?." She said something in a strange language, "But your people call me Death." She grabbed his hand and pulled him to his feet, "But I'd much rather you call me Lady Grim Reaper!"

Danny stumbled back in shock, leaning against the tree trunk. No! It couldn't be! The Grim Reaper! That meant he'd failed! That meant…that meant…!

"I'm…dead?" Danny cried hoarsely, clutching at his chest, nearly hyperventilating, "M-my heart!" He slammed a fist over the left side of his chest in panic, "It's n-not beating!" His voice rose to a squeak, his breathing ragged, his hands clammy and cold, sweat beading his forehead. 

"Calm down, Danny, you're not dead. At least not yet anyway." The Reaper said, taking his wrist gently and leading him out from under the willow tree, "You're at the Inbetween."

"I-Inbetween?" His blue eyes darted over the bright countryside, "What's that?"

"Well, we're not sure if you're going to die yet so we're holding your soul here at the Inbetween; the place between Life and Death; until something happens."

"Where're my ghost powers?" He realized there was an empty space where his powers once were, "What's going on here? Where are you taking me? What happened? What's happening to me?"

"Shhhhh." Lady Grim put a manicured finger on his lips and his face flushed, "I'll explain in a minute but you have to calm down. Alright?"

Danny nodded silently and then continued to follow the beautiful Grim Reaper into what appeared to be a small roadside café only there was no road. She sat him at a table, told him to stay, and walked up to the counter where she ordered food and drink. Danny contented himself with looking around the little place. It was pretty much empty except for a tall man in a black suit and bright red hair pulled into a pony tail sipping a cup of coffee with a young boy whose face was hidden by a straggle of greasy hair.

"Here you go, sweetie!" Lady Grim Reaper put a plate and a steaming mug on the table before him before sitting down herself, "Now, your ghost powers are still in your body back on earth and there they will stay. You don't have to worry about them. Go on and eat, Danny, it'll do you good."

Danny gingerly picked up the doughnut and bit into it. Then upon realizing how hungry he was, practically inhaled it, and picked up the hot chocolate, carefully sipping it from the bright orange coffee mug. It was surprisingly warm in his hands. 

"Good boy!" Lady Grim took a drink of her own coco, "This place, the Inbetween, is where Reapers like myself and Lord Grim over there," She pointed at the red haired man, "Watch over the souls of people who may or may not die. People who are in comas often end up here."

"Am I…what's going to happen to me if I do die?" Danny licked frosting from his fingers, trying to hide his fear.

"Heaven or Hell." Lady Grim replied and then reached across the table and poked his nose playfully, "But I think, with your record, it'll be Heaven!"

Danny grinned weakly, 

"H-how long do I have to stay here?"

Lady Grim shrugged, taking another sip of hot coco, eyes closed. Danny sighed and slouched back in his chair, looking around the café. It was eerily quiet but not frighteningly so. It was the kind of silence that came with an empty library. Comforting. 

"What about my friends?" He asked suddenly, straightening up, "What bout ZeE, and Amethyst, and Tucker…and Sam?"

"Sorry Danny, I can't answer that." The Reaper wrapped her slim fingers around her mug, smiling sweetly at him, "I was put in charge of you and you alone."

"Oh…" He watched the steam curling from the drink, "It's nice here." He smiled, "Is Heaven this nice?"

"Better." She responded and then the bell jangling over the café door made them look up. Another man in a black suit had walked in (this one had short spiky golden-brown hair) leading a tall, thin man with white hair into the cozy establishment. Danny would have had a heart attack if his heart had been beating.

"Vlad?" He leapt to his feet and the white-haired man turned to him in shock.

"Daniel?" He made to walk over to Danny but the Reaper that had led him in grabbed his upper arm, holding him back; Vlad scowled, eyes flashing with annoyance, "I'm not trying to run away again, Lord Sorrow…!"

"Let him be, Sorrow…" Lady Grim waved a hand and Lord Sorrow let Vlad go.

"Daniel, what're you doing at the Inbetween?" Vlad asked, stepping up to the boy.

"I'd like to ask you the same thing!" Danny snapped, "Trying to take it over?"

"Please, Daniel, I'm not as stupid as you're convinced I am." Vlad grinned, "This is my third time dropping by the Inbetween with Lord Sorrow. Life threatening experiments and all that, you know." He waved a hand casually like he was talking about the weather and not about a life or death situation.

"Hmph." Danny crossed his arms, unconvinced. 

"But what're **you** doing here?" Vlad peered at the teen, squinting at him as though just by looking he could get the answer. Danny's bravado act quickly dropped away.

"It's a long story." Danny muttered, sitting back in his chair and taking another sip of coco, starring at the table top.

"I won't be going anywhere for at least an hour." Vlad pulled a chair up to their table as Lord Sorrow toward behind him, "I got hit with a pretty nasty blast. No doubt I'll wake up in the hospital…"

"Aren't you worried you won't wake up at all?" Danny asked, trying to act like he didn't care.

"Stop trying to change the subject, Daniel." Vlad waved the boy's question away, "I want to know what's happened to land a good boy like you at the Inbetween." He sneered out the words 'good boy.'

"Short version: evil genius, kidnapping kids, experiments, evil ghosts, and me." Danny said flatly, ignoring Vlad's glare, and taking another drink of hot chocolate. What he'd just said sank in, "The other eleven kids! What happened to them?" He rounded on Lady Grim Reaper, "Can't you tell me what happened to them at least?"

But Lady Grim shook her head, collected the mugs and plate, and walked over to the counter to return them to the owner. Danny looked helplessly at Vlad and Lord Sorrow but Vlad only looked confused and his Reaper was completely emotionless. Frustrated, lost, confused, and with sadness eating at his heart, Danny bolted from the café and out into the sunshine, not actually sure where he was going. His tennis shoes pounded the neon grass, the warm wind caressed his face as he went, colors flashed past him, and all he wanted to do was run. Run from…from what? From Vlad? From Lady Grim? From death? From himself? From his weakness? Not paying attention to where he was going, he smashed right into someone and fell backwards onto his butt,

"Owwww!" 

"Aw! He's so cute!" A female voice cooed and someone lifted him off the ground and set him back on his feet again, "Hey lill' cutie, who you with?"

Danny blinked up at a teenaged girl who could be no older than him with black hair the swept her shoulders, sparkling amber eyes, black eyeliner and lipstick, and black cloths; a black T-shirt with the sleeves and bottom ripped off, a black mini-skirt, black fishnet gloves that reached to her elbows, and heavy black boots. She almost reminded Danny of Sam. Behind her stood a timid looking girl with light brown hair pulled into a messy ponytail and dark turquoise eyes.

"Um…uh…I…" Danny tried to reign himself in, "Well, I-."

"He's with me, Lady Darkness," Came the voice of Lady Grim Reaper and Danny felt her hand on his shoulder, "Keep moving."

"Ah, Milady!" Darkness swept into a mocking bow, sneering, "Nice to see you doing a job…for once." Her amber eyes locked upon Danny and he quickly looked away, she was creepy and that was saying something coming from a kid who fought ghosts, "And such an adorable one too!" She pinched Danny's cheek and he jerked away, making a face at her.

"Lady Darkness," A deep voice, deep as the ocean and as thick as pudding, cut towards them and Danny looked over his shoulder to see Lord Sorrow and Vlad coming their way, "Take your charge and get moving. Danny Fenton is worth more than your salary."

"Booger." Darkness muttered, took the girl by the hand, and stalked off. 

"What the heck was that about?" Danny asked, sharing a confused look with Vlad.

"Reaper politics." Lady Grim replied, "To complicated for you, boy-o." She smiled at him, "How 'bouts we go somewhere and relax?"

Moments later, Danny was sitting on a river bank with his bare feet in the clear sparkling water, his pants rolled up to his knees and his shirt off. Vlad sat beside him though not near the water. The sun shone down upon them but it was not scorching hot, just pleasantly warm.

"It's so peaceful here." Danny said for about the umpteenth time, "I like it."

"As you've stated numerous times, Daniel." Vlad seemed irritated, fidgeting around like a caged animal, "So, what about this evil genius?"

"Can't you just drop it?" Danny snapped back, "I'm trying to enjoy myself here!"

"You're subconsciously blocking out those bad memories, aren't you?" Vlad's smug tone made Danny look up at him, "This semi-death state will do that to you."

Danny looked away, gazing back into the water, fingers weaving through the grass as he thought. As much as he hated to admit it, Vlad was right. It was such a beautiful scenery that Danny had almost forgotten how he'd gotten here in the first place.

"Yulcifer." He sighed and Vlad's head snapped up and the two Reaper's turned to look at him questioningly, "It was the name of that evil genius guy I told you about. He kidnapped, brainwashed, and experimented on kids; mainly teens. I was one of them. Turns out he was trying to use us to summon some sort of evil ghost that could destroy the whole world. Why he wanted to do that, I don't know. I just hope ZeE and the others are alright…"

There was an extremely heavy silence during which Lady Grim went back to picking handfuls of black roses, Lord Sorrow standing by her side, Vlad starred blankly up into the bright blue sky, and Danny pulled his feet out of the water, drying them off with his socks before pulling them and his shoes back on. Now that he had remembered just what had landed him here, he was completely distraught and fidgety. The halfa started twisting flowers in his fingers, popping their heads off as he went, brow furrowed.

"Danny, please stop killing the flowers." Lady Grim gently slipped her arms around his shoulders in a motherly sort of hug that choked him up as he remembered his family, "I'm sure that a decision will be made soon and you won't have to sit here with this annoying Mister Masters anymore." Vlad scowled at her and she chuckled, "Come on, boy-o, on your feet."

Danny hauled himself upwards and brushed himself off before turning his attention back to the clear, sparkling water of the river. Cicadas chirped nearby, the river rolled along in a bass rumble, the sky was amazingly blue, the grass soft beneath his feet, and the air was so pure he didn't think he would ever be able to breathe again if he made it back to Amity Park. 

"Here." His Reaper pressed a black rose into his hands, "For that girlfriend of yours."

"What?" Was all he managed to get out before his own voice interrupted him.

"_Danny? You ready to go?"_ Vlad was on his feet in an instant and Danny had spun to face the direction the voice had come from, _"Whoa, whoa, there! Calm down! I'm just here to take you back!"_

And, right before their eyes, a figure materialized out of thin air. He was a teenaged boy with black hair that fell into his face and bright blue eyes. He was grinning and fanning out behind him like something from a fantasy movie were a pair of obsidian black wings with millions of other colors shifting through them like an oil spill. Danny's mouth hung open. He was looking at himself. With black angel wings. Danny the Black Angel. 

"_What?"_ The winged version of himself cocked his head, rocking back forth on his heels, _"Never seen your Guardian Angel before Danny?"_ He flared his wings out briefly before folding them again, grinning, _"Come on, I've been watching you forever, man, that sort of hurts."_

Um…sorry?" Danny rubbed the back of his neck, conscious of the fact that Lady Grim was giggling at his comments and Vlad was practically burning a hole in his back by starring at him.

"Are you ready to go, Danny Fenton?" Lord Sorrow loomed behind all of them and Danny gulped. 

"Uh, yeah, I guess I am, wait hold on." Danny faced the two Reapers and Vlad, a small smile on his face, "Well, Lady Grim, Lord Sorrow, Vlad, it's been fun. But I guess…I guess I have to leave now and get back to the hero stuff. Vlad," The elder halfa's turquoise eyes flashed and he smiled coldly at the youth, "I don't really want to see you soon but knowing my luck, I will." Vlad scowled at him and Danny snickered, moving his attention to the only girl in the group, "Lady Grim Reaper…"

"Yes, Danny Fenton?" Her brown eyes were alight.

"I won't be seeing you again for a while, will I?"

The Reaper sighed, "That depends on what you do." She responded, "As Clockwork likes to say: 'the future isn't set in stone.'"

"Wha-Clockwork?" Danny started a question but his Guardian Angel had grabbed his wrist and was already lifting off into the air, "What do you mmmeeeeaaaaaaannnn?"

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Cool. Another long chapter. Kudos. You didn't really think I was going to let Danny die did you? No way! He needs to finish what's been started! And what of Sam, Tucker, Amethyst, and the other eleven kids…? Well, you'll just have to find out…

Thanks for reading and I'm sorry for my absence! Byes!


	14. 13 Intervention

I think we're close to the end now, or getting there anyway

I think we're close to the end now, or getting there anyway. Thanks to all who have read this or are reading it! You guys are awesome! And may Writer's Block stay faaaaarrrrrrrr away from you (it'll help if you review XD)! Onto the chapter!

**Thirteen: Intervention **

"Don't you dare go, Danny! Don't you dare leave us!" Sam screamed as the ground continued to shake and eerie howling noises were coming from the summoning circle, "Danny! This whole town needs you! Come back, okay…! For us…! For me…"

She was draped over his chest, sobbing, Tucker slouched next to her, crying equally as hard, and a few feet away was Amethyst, so pathetic looking she could have been dead too. None of them cared that Zodiac was coming, probably coming to destroy the earth. Danny Fenton was gone. What did it matter if Zodiac destroyed everything? It was already destroyed anyway.

"Danny…" Sam moaned, pushing herself upright and tracing a shaking finger down the side of his face, "You are such a moron…why did you have to go and play the hero…?"

Danny suddenly convulsed and gasped, his eyes flying open, and Sam screamed and fell backwards into Tucker so that they both lay sprawled on the grass. Danny, meanwhile, was still laying on his back, hacking and coughing horribly, trying to breathe. Sam got over her initial shock of Danny actually **moving** again and rushed to his side to help him sit upright. He grabbed her hand as she did so and laced between his fingers was a black rose; she barely noticed its thorns tear into her skin as she clenched her hand in his.

"Danny, my gosh…how are you…?" Tucker's eyes were as big as dinner plates, if not bigger, and his mouth was hanging open in shock, tears still running down his cheeks, "But…but…your heart…it stopped beating…I double checked…!"

"Funny thing about death…" Danny wheezed, squinting at his best friends, "It doesn't always last, huh?"

"Aheh…" Sam's smile was evident and she threw her arms around him, squeezing him tightly, "Darn you…! Don't you **ever** do that to me again…!"

"Okay Sam…" He gasped, squirming in her grip, "But I can't promise that if you strangle me!"

The Goth let go of him and he pushed himself slowly to his feet, having some difficulty because the ground had not stopped shaking. Amethyst kept starring at him with a shocked look glittering in her dark violet eyes. When he'd finally managed to straighten himself up he pulled Sam and Tucker up as well and turned his attention to the still glowing summon circle.

"How long have I been out?" He asked, the eerie light making him all the more deathly as he shifted into his ghost form.

"Only about two minutes," Tucker replied, "And so far nothing's come out of that summon circle."

"And hopefully nothing will," Amethyst snarled, her ears back, "We can stop the summoning if we act now. All we have to do is mess up the circle; it'll throw off the summon commands and backfire on the one who activated it."

"Me?" Danny squeaked, looking at her with wide eyes, unconsciously grabbing Sam's hand in his own icy one. She squeezed his fingers reassuringly.

"No, of course not! Yulcifer!" An evil grin split the Yokai Fox girl's features, "He'll get blasted full in the face with what he deserves; the angry spirits of trapped Yokais!"

"This I gotta see!" Sam sneered and looked at Danny who shared her delight.

"Well then," The halfa was all to ready for vengeance, "What the heck are we waiting for!? The end of the world!?"

"I'd rather not!" Tucker cried.

"Then let's **move**!" Amethyst ran head on towards the summon circle, the Amity Park trio following in her wake. The enormous ectoplasmic pressure that the circle was emitting was enough to send them spinning backwards and it was all they could do to crawl forwards. Tucker actually slipped and fell and would have been sent head first into a tree behind them had Danny not snatched his best friend from the ground and dragged him forward too.

"So how're we going to ruin burned up grass!?" The techie shouted above the roar of ectoplasm and wind and the rumbling earth.

"Like this!" Amethyst planted her feet firmly into the ground, raised her hands above her head, and started throwing red balls of ectoplasm at the circle outline, blasting holes in it and scorching the nearby grass, effectively ruining the circle. Danny soon joined in, his fiery green ectoplasm almost white with the absolute hatred he felt towards Yulicfer.

"Hey, guys, anyone notice that the ground **isn't** shaking anymore?" Sam asked, looking around, "And that the wind's not blowing and it's sort of scary quiet?"

"Uh-oh." Tucker muttered and then all four of them were blown backwards by an explosion of green light, a roaring sound filled their ears, and they lost feeling with everything. Danny couldn't even tell he'd hit the ground.

"Is…is it over?" Sam asked, rolling onto her feet and looking around.

"Um, yes, I believe it is…" Amethyst was on her hands and knees like the fox she was, bushy tail frazzled and standing on end.

"ZeE!" Danny leapt to his feet and ran over to the cage containing the hacker, blasting the top off with a well aimed ecto-beam, "ZeE, come on, let's get out of here and go find Alex! ZeE?"

The other boy was slumped awkwardly in the cage, his skin pale and chalky, his eyes closed, and, as Danny, pulled him out, his limbs flopped about like a puppet. Danny shook the hacker's shoulders, half-smiling.

"Come on, ZeE, quit messing around! We won! Get up! Let's get outta here!" Nothing, "ZeE!? ZeE, wake up!" Still no response, "ZeE? ZeE, come on, man, wake up!" Danny shook the boy's shoulders again as his friends approached but ZeE's eyes wouldn't open and he wasn't breathing, "**ZE****E**!"

"Danny…" Amethyst whispered, her ears drooping, "ZeE's gone…they're all gone. To summon Zodiac…it required the Yokai Ghost of a human…their Yokais were ripped out of them…the only reason you survived was because of your ghost powers…"

"No…no way…!" Danny moaned, feeling his eyes burn, his fists clenching on the cool earth, sagging to his knees, "I…I hate this…! I have powers…and I can't even save the people I care about!"

"Danny…" Sam crouched beside him, putting a gentle hand on his shoulder, "Danny, it'll be okay…"

"No it won't!" Danny screamed, squeezing his eyes shut, his white hair changing back to black as tears rolled down his cheeks unchecked, "It won't be okay! You don't get it!" He slammed his fists into the ground, "I'm supposed to save them all! All of them! THEY WEREN'T SUPPOSED TO DIE!!"

And he started sobbing, his cries echoing over the clearing, tears leaving streaks in the dirt smeared across his face. Sam wrapped her arms around him and pulled him close. Danny clutched at her, sobbing uncontrollably. Amethyst just stood by and watched.

"IT WASN'T SUPPOSED TO END THIS WAY!!" Danny screamed, still crying, "EVERYONE'S SUPPOSED TO COME OUT ALIVE JUST LIKE ALWAYS!! HOW CAN I BE A HERO IF I CAN'T SAVE EVERYONE!? IT'S NOT FAIR! It's not fair! It's not…fair…!"

The sound of police sirens wailed through the night air, blue and red lights flickering through the trees, and Amethyst vanished from view, no doubt to run back into the Yokai Ghost pits. Tucker dropped beside his two best friends and they clung to one another in the darkness with eleven dead teenagers scattered in cages around them, Danny still bawling his heart out.

And that was how the police found them, three friends, covered in dirt, one of them the missing Danny Fenton, surrounded by death.

* * *

Oh man, I know, terrible ending, terribly sad. Poor Danny. Yeah, skipped out on the fight scene though, didn't I? Well, be prepared; there's much more to come.

Stole the "you're heart stopped beating, I double checked" line from Yu Yu Hakusho. There's my disclaimer for that.


	15. 14 Lifeless to Humanity

Last chapter, I think, and then an epilogue. We'll see how this all turns out in the end…

Final disclaimer for the epilogue so I don't ruin it: I got the idea for the chapter title from Yu Yu Hakusho.

**Fourteen: Lifeless to Humanity**

It had been almost two weeks since the incident in the park and Danny, Sam, and Tucker were back into real life. Well, Tucker and Sam were back into real life. Danny looked as though he'd rather be jumping off rooftops and not in his ghost form either.

Once the police had picked them up from the park and taken them to the station, they'd called everyone's parents (Sam wanted to die right there when she heard her parents screaming over the phone), and promptly dragged the hiccupping, red eyed, Danny into an interrogation room for almost and hour and a half. When Sam, Tucker, and Jazz had later asked him about it, he had responded that all he'd told them was what had happened at the school (leaving out his ghost half bits) and vaguely what he could remember about the area where the warehouse was.

And he hadn't said a word since. Danny Fenton had locked himself up inside with grief; even Dash was scared of the silent teen with the dead look in his blue eyes. He didn't talk to anyone, he didn't look at anyone unless it required his immediate attention, and he hadn't 'gone ghost' once since the thing in the park. It was like he'd sworn off it, even when Skulker came after him, all he did was whip out the thermos and suck him in.

And it was scaring Sam. She wanted the Danny back who had kissed her that night, the Danny who laughed at himself when he fell down, the Danny who was constantly going on about NASA, the Danny whose brilliant eyes; whether blue or green; were always alight, the Danny who had stepped into the Fenton Portal almost a year ago and taken on the responsibility of protecting Amity Park from the ghost attacks.

Danny was dead. As dead as ZeE. As dead as the other ten kids in that park. Dead.

Sam wanted to smack him, to tell him he was being an idiot and that he needed to get over it. But she didn't have the heart. He looked so broken, beaten, and pathetic that she just couldn't do it, convincing herself instead that by not doing so he would get out of his self-hating slump on his own.


	16. 15 Trial of Humanity: The Defense Rests

**Epilogue: Trial of Humanity; the Defense Rests**

It was a cool, Wednesday afternoon and Sam, Tucker, and the ever-unresponsive Danny were sitting through a boring lecture on right angles in their Geometry class. Right angles; who really cared anyway? The only sounds were from the teacher blabbing on and on and the chalk scraping across the chalkboard; though occasionally there was a cough or sneeze or the sound of shuffling movements from the students.

The whole, boring, peaceful silence was shattered when the door slammed open and everyone looked around to see a young police officer standing in the threshold, biting his lip.

"Er, sorry to intrude madam," He muttered, trying to ignore the students stares, "But, eh, I need a one Daniel Fenton to come with me."

Danny, the only one of the class who had made no response at all to the entry, now slowly turned his head in reply to the sound of someone saying his full name. He did not, however, react when he saw it was an officer, he merely stood and walked slowly through the desks towards the man. Sam and Tucker automatically stood to follow, paused, and then went anyway. Danny, no matter how dead he seemed, was still their best friend.

The officer looked as though he was going to protest but when Sam grabbed Danny's hand (Danny gave no response, his fingers limp in her grasp) and glared at him, the man backed off and led them through the school and out into his cruiser.

"Where are we going?" Tucker asked, shutting the car door and buckling his seatbelt; he sat beside one window, Sam sat in the middle, and Danny starred blankly out the other window, "The station? Need more answers?"

"Um…no…" The police man seemed genuinely shaken about something, "I'm not…I'm not aloud to talk about it outside the containment area." And he pulled out of the school parking lot, driving down the street and pulling onto the highway.

The silence in the car was heavy, dreadfully so, and Sam longed for someone to speak but she didn't know what to say and so she kept her mouth shut, her hand still clutching Danny's. When the policeman pulled off the highway and started heading towards the dump, she felt Danny's usually unresponsive fingers tighten in her grasp. He knew where they were headed.

The police officer turned off the main road and started driving down a rather bumpy, recently made, dirt road. Before reaching the end, he pulled to a stop beside several other police cars and opened his door. But Danny and his two friends were faster and had already cleared the trees by the time the officer had locked his doors.

Danny choked, his eyes widening, shaking visibly.

Where the warehouse had been, the warehouse under which had been Ed's School, there was nothing but a huge, black crater in the earth. There was nothing left. Danny pulled away from Sam, running up to the barriers. The police officers tried to stop him but he barreled past them and ran to the edge. However, his moment was too much and he slipped over the edge and tumbled head over heels into the black ash all the way to bottom where he lay sprawled for a moment before scrambling onto his hands and knees and digging into the destroyed earth.

"No…!" Sam and Tucker could hear him cry, "No, no, no, no! Not Alex too! Not Alex! Not Alex! Why is this happening to me…!? What did I do to deserve this!?"

Sam realized what must have happened. If this was where Ed's school had been then surely Yulicfer had been watching the proceedings of his summons from somewhere he deemed safe. And when the summon circle had been destroyed by Amethyst and Danny and the energy had backfired at the evil genius…it had ruined everything around him as well.

And it was at that moment that everything came into horribly clear focus. This had been the last straw. Danny wasn't going to get better, he wasn't going to go back to the old Danny they'd all loved. He was gone. Completely.

Forever.

Forever Phantom?

Not likely.

Forever Fenton?

No. Fenton was dead too.

Then forever…what?


End file.
